Deadly and Blonde
by Silent-Scream84
Summary: When strange creatures start showing up and wreaking havoc in London, Hellsing receives an unexpected offer of help from a division of the FBI. Chapter fourteen is up, sorry for the long, long delay. R&R please.
1. Lull before the storm

_Disclaimer: I do not own Hellsing or Parasite Eve II(Well, not the franchises anyway), and I am not making any money from these writings. They are being written purely for the enjoyment of myself and all the other anime and video game geeks out there._

Deadly and Blonde

Chapter 1: Lull before the storm

"A figure dressed all in black sits perched atop Big Ben; Standing guard over London. She is Seras Victoria, resident vampire of the Hellsing organization, like a sentinel, silent and sure, keeping watch in the night." Seras was unable to continue her over-the-top narrative of herself as she was overtaken by laughter. More like a fit of giggling, but oh well. Seras lost her balance and stood for a moment, windmilling her arms before landing solidly on her back side. She stood up and rubbed her bum. If Alucard had seen that one she'd never hear the end of it. Fortunately for her, he was off on a mission right now.

It had been almost a full year now since the defeat of Incognito. Seras had been released from Alucard soon after the Incognito incident. Since then, Seras had become much more powerful; Nowhere near Alucard's level, but vastly stronger than she had been before. She had also become much better adjusted to her new life as a vampire. She'd gotten over most of her qualms about drinking blood and was more comfortable with the requirements of her job.

Recently, it had gotten so that sending both her and Alucard on most missions was just overkill, so it had been decided that she and Alucard would alternate missions so the agency would always have one of their resident vampires on standby incase there was an emergency.

This was Seras' night on standby, and, being as the rate and severity of vampire and FREAK related incidents had dropped off sharply after incognito's defeat, it was pretty safe to assume she wouldn't be called on. She reached down and made sure her radio was still attached to her belt, Seras doubted that she'd be called in, but she had the radio with her anyway just to be safe.

Now, as you may have guessed, Seras would become quite bored just sitting around at the Hellsing mansion. For the first few weeks of the new alternating schedule, she'd sit around in her room waiting incase there were an emergency. She had pretty much exhausted just about every form of amusement she could think of for herself while sitting around in her room. She'd tried video games, movies, and reading; even blowing shit up at the shooting range for a while. But, spending most of the time that you're awake, playing games and trying to distract yourself can get rather boring.

So Seras had started to venture around outside the mansion. She'd stayed close by at first, not really going any more than two or three miles away, but after a while had ventured further out until she'd gotten to the point where she would just walk all over the city trying to amuse herself. Now about a week ago, Seras had come across a woman being mugged while she was wandering around. Seras, being Seras had to intervene and had helped the woman to escape unharmed as well as giving the muggers a good beating and a bit of blood loss. Her success against the muggers, added to her determination to try to help people had given her the bright idea of playing superhero on her days off.

Seras smiled, she still hadn't thought of a name for herself. She supposed of all the existing super hero names, Bat Girl would probably be the most appropriate, but the costuming involved in pulling that off would be a bit more elaborate than she was willing to bother with. At present, her super hero garb looked like something out of The Matrix. She wore black leather pants and a matching sleeveless top, over that she wore a long black trench coat and a pair of sunglasses to complete the ensemble. She was rather pleased with her look, so much so that she'd started wearing a somewhat modified version of this costume on her missions.

She snapped out of her reverie as her super sensitive ears picked up the sound of someone screaming below, several someones actually, now that she was paying attention. Seras patted her gun to make sure it was firmly attached to her belt and leapt off the top of the clock tower, dissolving into a cloud of bats almost immediately. Once she had gotten her bearings(not so easy when there are a hundred or so independent pieces of you flying around), she took off towards the screams.

She re-formed herself in an empty alleyway a block or so down from the action, she looked herself over, making sure she had put herself back together correctly and took off at a sprint towards the origin of the screams. She reached their location in only a few seconds thanks to her vampiric speed. She stopped short as what everyone was screaming about came into view. Seras had been expecting maybe an armed robbery, or some FREAKs running around creating havoc, but what greeted her eyes was something that she was completely unprepared for.

A group of a dozen or so people was huddled together against the side of a building, some of them holding pieces of wood or metal that they had managed to pick up off the street. In the road, about a foot out from where the sidewalk ended stood something the like of which Seras had never seen before. The thing looked almost like a gorilla, large bodied with huge arms reaching almost to the ground. Its skin was a greenish grey color and looked thick and leathery, it had short stumpy legs and a fairly small head with an evil looking expression plastered on its face. Not knowing what this thing was, Seras wasn't quite sure how to proceed but being young and somewhat impulsive she sprinted ahead putting herself between the group of cowering people and the creature.

To the people standing there it seemed almost as if Seras had just appeared there since none of them could see well enough in the dark to track her movement during her short sprint to her current position. The creature was surprised at her sudden appearance as well, and lashed out with one of its arms at her. To Seras' shock, the thing's arm actually extended; unable to avoid the blow Seras took a hit to her chest and was flung into the wall of the building behind her leaving a somewhat person shaped imprint in the wall. No human could possibly have survived a blow that hard, at least not without good body armor in which case the person would still be grievously injured. Knowing this, the people in the small group were very surprised when Seras pulled herself to her feet a moment later.

Her glasses had fallen off and broken, revealing her scarlet colored eyes. Noticing that the group of people was now staring at her in disbelief she took advantage of their attention and directed them to move along the side of the building into an alleyway about twenty feet away. Seeing her eyes and fangs, the people in the group decided it would be best not to argue with her and started slowly moving along the wall. Seras turned back to the creature and tried to decide the best way to go about killing the thing. The creature roared, Seras hissed and bared her fangs in response, then blew a rather large hole in the thing's chest area with her gun. Comparable to the Jackal in power, Seras had gotten her Seraph after pestering Walter to get her a weapon somewhat less awkward to use than her Harkonnen. The creature fell backwards, convulsing and twitching as it died.

What the hell was that thing? she thought. The shot had made a very large crater in the creature's chest, but hadn't actually managed to drill all the way through to make a hole in the thing. Now, this had to be one tough cookie not to have had a hole blown completely through it by a 13 mm gun. Deciding that this thing could potentially be a significant threat if there were more of them around, she radioed HQ to have them send a cleanup crew and to take the creature back to Hellsing for study.

_Well, that's the end of Chapter 1. I hope you enjoyed it. Please review, it's my first writing on so I'm open to any criticisms or suggestions you may have. Just keep it civil, in other words NO FLAMES. Thank you. Oh, and bonus points to you if you can figure out what ANMC Seras killed._


	2. Big Trouble

Deadly and Blonde

Chapter 2: Big Trouble

Seras paced in front of the doors to the lab where the creature she'd killed had been taken. She'd been pacing for almost three hours now, and her patience was about to completely give out. She should have been sleeping at this point, since dawn would soon arrive, but her curiosity as to the nature of the thing she'd shot prevented her from even trying. "Seras, go to sleep, it will soon be dawn and you can always find out what that thing was tomorrow night." Alucard had told her, and she knew that she would find out about the thing eventually, but the events of the night were still bothering her.

The creature had been attacking those people in the middle of the city, in a pretty well populated area. How had the thing gotten there unnoticed? Even if nobody had reported seeing it, there would have been a trail of dead or injured behind it and Seras knew the thing was too large to have come up through a manhole. So, either the thing really did manage to get into the center of the city almost completely unnoticed or someone put it there. Seras knew which of those two options she thought was more likely, but just what the hell was that thing?

Seras resumed her pacing just as the light above the operating room doors switched off. She quickly moved to sit in one of the chairs facing the entrance to the operating suite so it wouldn't be overly obvious that she'd been waiting impatiently for the results of the autopsy. The first one out of the room was Integra, who had been supervising the operation. "Sir Hellsing," Seras stood and snapped to attention as the leader of Hellsing came to stand in front of her. "Sir Hellsing, what was that thing?"

"I don't know Seras, neither myself nor any of the doctors have ever seen anything like this. The creature that you killed was human." At the look of horror that suddenly came over Seras' face, Integra quickly added, "But with the mutations whoever it was had gone through, they were as far gone as any ghoul you've fought. We couldn't even determine what gender the thing was. I have Walter trying to find out more on the internet, he seems to be good at finding things online that probably shouldn't even be there." Integra sighed, she was tired and frustrated, she hadn't been lying when she'd told Seras that they'd never seen anything like this. It had been determined that the creature wasn't a new breed of FREAK fairly early on, due to the lack of a FREAK chip, or any vampiric traits. The only thing they had found out about the thing was that it had been human at one time, and that on a cellular level there was extremely bizarre activity going on involving the mitochondria.

"Seras, you should go to bed. We won't know anything for at least another day or two and tomorrow is your night on duty. We need you rested up incase any more of these things show up. I've given Alucard the assignment of taking care of any FREAK or vampire related incidents for now, I need you to go out and keep an eye out for any more of these types of things. We don't know what they are yet, but I can't imagine that this will be the last we'll hear of this. I'm assigning you to deal with any more of these things that show up, and if possible to help Walter with his research into just what they are." Seras nodded.

"Very well, I'll see you tomorrow night." Seras turned and walked down the hall, starting on the labyrinthine path through the dungeons that would lead her to her room. Seras stretched as she went, cracking her neck and back. What ever that thing had been, it had a mean right hook, she'd practically been knocked completely through a concrete wall. Seras continued to ponder just what the creature could possibly be, and where it could have come from. She was still pondering when she arrived at her room a couple of minutes later. The adrenaline type rush she got from fighting the thing was starting to wear off and she was rapidly becoming _very_ tired. Seras pushed open the door to her room and walked directly to her bed, ignoring the blood bag that had been left out on the table for her. She had barely managed to change out of her uniform and get horizontal before sleep overtook her.

A few hours later, in America…

Pierce Caradine sat in front of his computer at MIST headquarters. He called Rupert Broderick who was now the agent in charge of the Los Angeles MIST center, "I'm getting reports of a possible ANMC incident in London. Someone from the Hellsing organization is searching for information on cellular abnormalities and mutations involving mitochondria. Shall I try to get in touch with them to get more information, or d'you want me to block them?"

"Hellsing eh? I've heard rumors about that group, hunts vampires supposedly." Rupert laughed, "Find out everything you can about this 'Hellsing' including any government credentials they may have and report your findings to me in an hour. Oh, and get in touch with Aya; if things go south we're going to need her." Pierce simply nodded and started his information gathering. He'd already found out a good deal about this Hellsing Organization, but to get anymore in depth information than he already had, he was going to have to do some serious hacking. He found MI-5's network, and started working on the security.

Almost forty-five minutes later, when he was satisfied that he'd managed to gather most of the really important information about Hellsing he picked up the phone and called Aya's number. She picked up on the second ring, "Hello?"

"Hi, Aya, it's Pierce. I need you to come down to headquarters as soon as you can, we've had an incident and may need to deploy. I'd give this one an 'oh shit' rating of 8 out of 10."

"Pierce, you know I'm on leave. I need to take care of Eve, she's still just a little girl you know." Eve was indeed still a little girl; It had been almost four years since she'd been rescued from the Neo-Ark facility. Since then the girl had exhibited few, if any, signs of aging. Her mind was maturing at a normal, if somewhat accelerated pace. She was, it was estimated, about fourteen or fifteen years old at this point, but she still appeared to be about nine. Aya figured that it was due to the girl's mutated mitochondria, since her own had a similar effect on her physiology. Aya was thirty two now, but could easily pass for at least ten years younger. In-fact, she didn't look like _she'd_ aged either since the Neo-Ark incident.

"Yes I know. Why don't you bring her with you to headquarters, we can figure out how to manage the situation from there but we really need you to be here for this one."

"Fine, I'll be there in half an hour." She hung up the phone and looked at the young girl standing next to her. "Eve, we need to take a little trip to see Pierce and Rupert." Eve smiled, Pierce always gave her candy when they went to see him. Aya went to her room to pack some clothing quickly, it sounded like something serious was going on; she should be prepared in case she was dispatched directly from Headquarters.

Pierce leaned back in his extremely well worn in computer chair. He'd found out just about all of the information on this Hellsing organization, at least all of the information that he could find. Now he just had to wait another ten minutes until Rupert came back. Pierce decided to go over all of the information he had collected and printed out quickly, to make sure he hadn't accidentally left out any important information. Among the information that Pierce was unable to find in his research was of course the information about Hellsing's two resident vampires.

Rupert came in precisely on time, one hour from when he'd left down to the minute. "So, what have you found?"

"Everything. I've got personnel records, requisitions for materiel from the military, records of some incidents that they've handled, and of course the contact information to get in touch with the head of the agency directly. The head of the agency is one Sir Integra Wingates Hellsing, but before I continue, we should wait for Aya to get here. She should be arriving in fifteen or twenty minutes.

"Fine, I notice you said '_Sir_ Integra Wingates Hellsing'."

"Yes, she is one of a group of important advisors to the Queen affectionately known as the Knights of the Round Table. Hellsing agency is apparently in charge of the defense of England against all sorts of supernatural threats."

"I see. So they are a government supervised agency, probably reporting directly to the Queen I'd imagine. I guess that means they would have to be trustworthy enough for us to be able to contact without having to worry about too much public exposure of our agency." Rupert sat down in a chair on the opposite side of the desk from Pierce. "I guess all we need now is to wait for our star agent to arrive." He chuckled, Aya was certainly one of the most skilled hunters, and her unique talents gave her a strong advantage over the others, but she was stubborn and would often bend or completely ignore her orders.

Aya arrived about twenty minutes later. She decided to leave Eve with Jody for the duration of the meeting and went upstairs to meet with Pierce and Rupert. Aya walked into Pierce's office and sat down in the chair next to Rupert. "Okay, what's the scoop?"

"We've got a possible ANMC incident in London. We're going to be contacting the agency over there that dealt with the situation and the cleanup to verify our information." said Rupert. "Depending on the severity of the situation I'm afraid we may have to put you back on active duty as you have certain methods of dealing with these things that aren't available to the rest of us."

"Who will take care of Eve if I end up having to go to England?"

"I could if you'd like," volunteered Pierce, "I'm sure Jodie might be interested in the job too."

"That is of course assuming that you're not being sent with me as."

"Right, forgot about that. It's been quite a while since the last major incident after all."

"Well, now that we're all here," started Rupert, "I'd like to give this Sir Hellsing a call and see if there's even anything for us to be worried about. But first, I'll need you," he pointed at Pierce, "to get in touch with our government and get them to give us permission to contact and help these people if need be. Aya, I want you to get some practice on the shooting range, you haven't been on active duty in a while and I don't want you to be rusty."

Aya nodded her assent. She had been off duty for a couple of months now having taken off during a slump in NMC activity to concentrate on caring for Eve. She doubted her shooting skills had fallen all that much since she'd left the agency, but it'd still be a good idea to get back in practice. She left the office and started off towards the shooting range.

She hunted down Jodie to get her to supervise the shooting range while she was there and found her playing with Eve. The two were fooling around doing simple gymnastics and the like on the padded ground of the shooting range. Aya called out to them, "Hey Jodie, unless you'd like to give me some real practice with moving targets I suggest you get your tail out of there."

Jodie looked up from where she had been helping Eve to keep her balance in a handstand. She gave Aya a look that said Ha ha. Verrry funny… "Alright, we'll be clear in a second. Do you need me to supervise for you?"

"Yeah, it'd be great if you could."

"Fine. What do you want to start with?"

"Level two, M4A1 please. Oh, and Jodie, see if you can't unfreeze my Bounty Point accounts since I wasn't scheduled to come back yet."

"Sure, I'll work on that while you're running the program." Jodie pressed a series of buttons and flicked a switch, "Alright, here goes. Good luck." Aya didn't respond, but she hadn't really expected her to. The program started and she watched as the blonde hunter killed off series after series of simulated targets. Well, seems her shooting hasn't gotten any worse. she thought, guess I'd better see about getting that account un-frozen.

An hour and a half later Aya had finished running all the levels of the program using both the assault rifle and a shotgun. After all that practice she was getting fairly tired, and it probably wouldn't really be worth it to continue and move on to the 9mm weapons. She signaled to Jodie to stop the program and went to go lie down for a little before she got back to practicing.

HR 

Seras awoke early, well, early for a vampire anyway, so around five thirty in the evening. Integra had a meeting of the roundtable this evening to discuss possible implications of the appearance of that creature. The meeting would likely take quite a bit of time, so she decided to take care of something she'd meant to do later that night anyway. She made her way to Walter's room. She found him sitting in his room typing away at the computer. She knocked lightly on his already open door and walked in.

Walter looked up from his work, "Ah, Miss Victoria, is there something I can help you with?"

"Yes, I was wondering if you might be able to find me some armor piercing, explosive rounds for the Seraph. No need to worry about blessed silver in these ones though."

Walter nodded, "Very well, it will likely take a day or two however."

"Thank you Walter." Seras gave him a little wave and walked out of the room. Now that she'd gotten that out of the way, there wasn't much left for her to do until the meeting was over. She hadn't been talking to Walter for very long though, so it would still be quite a while until she'd be able to talk to Integra. Not really able to think of anything else to do, she walked back to her room and plopped herself down on the couch she'd brought there from her apartment.

Seras groaned, she was by nature an upbeat, energetic type of person even though she was dead; and there really wasn't all that much for her to occupy herself with around Hellsing manor. There weren't even any good shows on TV anymore, so she amused herself mostly by pondering silly questions like what the garbage men must think when they see all the emptied blood bags pour out of the dumpster into their truck.

Normally at a time like this Seras would go out and wander around the city, but she was waiting for Integra's round table meeting to conclude; and that could take another five minutes or another five hours depending on the amount of bureaucratic bull shit that was brought to the table on that particular evening. Seras hoped that the meeting wouldn't go on for too long, besides being bored, she wanted to know just what she was going to be assigned to do about this new threat.

Sighing, she got up and walked over to her small book-shelf and pulled out her half finished copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula. She'd received the book as a gift from Walter the previous Christmas. It was strange, she didn't really feel like she should celebrate the Christian holy days anymore; after all, she was supposedly a particularly un-holy type of demon. She still wondered about that, whether or not she had condemned herself to some eternal damnation when she died by making the choice to become a vampire.

Forgetting about the book, she laid down on the couch again and stared at the ceiling. Was her physical form really more important than who she was and what she did? Sure she'd killed and she'd drunk blood. But she'd never killed anything but FREAKs or ghouls…or that thing she'd blown a hole in the day before she reminded herself. Even the blood, she'd only ever had the medicinal blood supplied to her by Hellsing, and that was donated. Sure, it wasn't donated with the intention of feeding a vampire, but wasn't it going towards the same goal in the end? After all, the blood was saving the lives of others, whether by giving a transfusion, or feeding Seras who hunted the monsters that haunted the London nights.

Or am I just lying to myself? she wondered. Maybe I really am just a monster now. It had seemed like such an easy choice to make, an eternity ago in that little church in the town of Cheddar. She hadn't had the time to ponder philosophy then, stuck in a death trap with no hope of escape. The choice had been a simple one to her, live or die. But was this really living after all? She couldn't go out and have fun like she used to, she couldn't contact any of the few acquaintances she'd had while she was alive, and she'd probably never have any sort of meaningful relationship.

"I may be a creature of the night," she whispered to nobody," but does that mean I have to be a monster as well?"


	3. Assistance

Deadly and Blonde

Chapter 3: Assistance

Approval to contact Hellsing arrived early that afternoon. "We are authorized to contact Hellsing Institution and render any necessary assistance in suppressing any Mitochondria related threat." Pierce said after hanging up the phone. Rupert nodded, he hadn't expected they would have any trouble getting approval; things had been quiet on the home front for quite some time and the few minor incidents that they did have were able to be handled by normal field agents.

Pierce handed the receiver to Rupert and punched in the number for Hellsing. Someone on the other end picked up on the second ring. "Who is this? How did you get this number?"

"This is special agent Rupert Broderick, I'm the agent in charge of the Los Angeles MIST office. We're a specialist division of the FBI, if you trace this call you'll be able to verify that. I've gotten some information about the recent incident in London and would like to offer our assistance. Our division was created to deal with these types of incidents, however I'd like to confirm some information about the incident to determine whether or not this was indeed a NMC related attack."

"Very well mister Broderick, what would you have me tell you?" Integra punched some commands into her computer to start a program that would trace the call.

"I assume that you've already performed an autopsy. Can you tell me if there was a cellular mutation involving the mitochondria?"

The trace finished quickly, there were very few stops along the route of the call. She confirmed that the phone call was indeed coming from an FBI office, one stationed in Los Angeles. It was being transmitted directly to Hellsing through secure government lines. "Yes, there were indeed mutations on a cellular level of the nature you describe. We've never come into contact with anything like this before; I will accept any assistance you are willing to give us, I want to know what we're facing here."

"The creature that was killed is what we call an NMC or Neo Mitochondria Creature, in this case it was actually an ANMC the 'A' standing for artificial. I will be dispatching a specialist to handle your case. She'll be able to give you more in depth information on the nature of these creatures when she arrives."

"I see. Have her fly in to London and I will have someone pick her up from the airport."

"As you wish Sir Hellsing. Oh, may I ask one more question? Have there been any more attacks since that first one?"

"No, there have been no further incidents as of yet, however it's been less than a day since the appearance of this 'ANMC' so I wouldn't count out the possibility of further incidents. Is there any possibility I could speak to this agent of yours before hand?"

"Yes, of course. Hold on for just one moment." Rupert held down the button on his desk for the intercom in the shooting range. "Special Agent Brea, please pick up. You have a priority one phone call on line two."

Aya stopped shooting and paused the program. She took off her head set and put down the AS-12 that she'd been practicing with. She walked into the control booth and picked up the phone, pressing the appropriate button to pick up the correct line. "Hello, Special Agent Brea speaking."

Integra was somewhat surprised at the voice on the other end of the line, the woman sounded like she was the same age as Seras (keep in mind Seras' age got frozen somewhere in her early twenties). Integra being Integra, she recovered from her shock in no time at all. "Miss Brea, this is Sir Integra Hellsing. I was told that you were being dispatched to assist us with handling this new threat. I wanted to ask you some questions before hand if that's alright with you."

Damn up-tight Brits… "Alright, what would you like to know?"

Stupid rude Americans… thought Integra. "First, what kind of experience do you have in dealing with these ANMC things? Second, you will be working with one of our top agents; however she is not quite…normal, will this be a problem?"

Not quite normal? I wonder what that could mean. Genetic splicing? Cybernetics? "I have been involved in the MIST division since its inception, I was involved in resolving the incident in New York City, which with your channels you've no doubt heard something about. I also handled a more recent, and somewhat more severe incident in the Mojave Desert that was very well covered up both by us and our government which I don't know if you'd know about. I don't think I should have a problem working with this agent of yours, but may I inquire about the nature of their…abnormality?"

"Yes, I had heard of the incident in New York; your people did a very good job of covering up the important parts though. We couldn't learn anything except there were mysterious attacks by some sorts of beasts and that your agency was involved. I'll request information on this Mojave incident from Mr. Broderick. As for our agent, she's a vampire; don't worry, I can personally guarantee she won't suck your blood."

"Uh-huh, I see." She really didn't though, A vampire? What kind of agency are we dealing with over there? "Well then, I guess I'll be seeing you some time later tonight." She pressed the button to transfer the call back up to Rupert's office in case there was anything else the two needed to arrange. It was a good thing she'd managed to arrange for the care of Eve with Jodie and Pierce already, it looked like she'd have to get prepped and on a plane as soon as possible now. Somewhat annoyed, she continued her shooting for another few minutes until the program she'd paused had finished. She walked over to the armory to get some weapons.

"Hey Jodie, I need some firepower."

"I'd thought you might," Jodie smiled, "you're in luck this time. Hellsing is paying your way for this one, seems they have really deep pockets. So take what you need, just don't over-do it."

"Do I ever?" Aya smiled innocently.

"Oh no, of course not." Jodie responded. She smiled, recalling Aya running off to Mojave with a Gunblade and a Hypervelocity Railgun. "So, what do you want?"

"Give me an MP5-A5, and an M4A1 with Hammer attachment."

"No shotgun?"

"I've still got my Gunblade." Aya smiled. She'd only ever seen two of the weapons, one belonged to No. 9, the other was hers. Both were custom made, and neither were registered which is why she was able to keep it instead of returning it to the armory after her mission had been completed. She just made sure she kept it very well hidden, she didn't think that any inspectors would be too thrilled to see the particle-blade/shotgun combination sitting in her closet or something. Not to mention she had a small child running around her apartment now.

The phone in the armory rang and Jodie picked it up. She was only on the phone for a moment. "Yes sir. I'll tell her right away." She turned to Aya, "That was the boss, your flight leaves from LAX in forty-five minutes. So, before you go is there anything else you need? I mean, besides ammunition obviously."

Aya leaned back against the wall and thought for a minute. She still had the armor that she'd purchased for her last mission, they'd never made her return that so she still had the Monk Robe and her own custom made body armor. Plus she still had many of the items she'd found back in Dry Field, like the Holy Water, Medicine Wheel, Skull Crystal, and Ofuda charm. She'd not been keeping in practice with her abilities however, and they'd probably dropped off. Being as this agency she'd be working with dealt with other sorts of paranormal occurrences, it might be a good idea to revive all of her abilities. "Give me all of the level three PE boosters. I have a feeling I might be needing those and not have the time to level up myself."

"Alright, I'll get that all packed up to be shipped along with you. You packed your body armor yourself I gather. Do you need me to pack anything else for you? I don't think they'd consider your gunblade appropriate as carry-on baggage."

"Right, the gunblade is in the trunk of my car. There's a removable panel on the bottom, behind the spare tire. Ummm…I guess it'd be good if you could pack my pistol and tonfa batons too, they're also in the trunk. Oh, and Jodie, thank you so much for agreeing to take care of Eve while I'm gone."

"No problem, you know I love kids. I'll have to take her in to work with me though, so I hope she doesn't drive Pierce too crazy." She grinned, "Alright, feel free to call if you find you need anything else. Aya, promise me you'll come back safe."

"I will. Thanks again for your help, but now I've got a plane to catch." Aya walked out of the armory and ran upstairs to get her mission packet from Rupert before leaving for the airport. As usual the manila envelope contained a number of types of ID, some case photos, and a copy of the mission briefing. This time it also held a file with information for Sir Hellsing that she would have to make sure got to her safely and without anyone else seeing it. Without any further ado, she said bye to Rupert and Pierce and went outside to catch the van to the airport.

HR 

The phone on the nightstand rang, pulling Seras from her reverie. She stood and picked up the phone. "Seras here."

"Seras, please come up to my office immediately." Came Sir Integra's voice, followed immediately by the click of the phone being hung up. Ah, Sir Integra, as eloquent and informative as ever. Thought Seras. Taking a quick glance in the mirror (yes, she has a reflection), she made sure she was reasonably presentable and walked out the door on the way to Integra's office.

She knocked on the tall oak doors once she arrived, and got an immediate response, "Come in Seras." She pushed open the door and walked into the room, shutting the door behind her. Seras walked up to Integra's desk, "You called for me sir?"

"Yes, Seras. I have just gotten off the phone with an agent from the American FBI, they will be sending us assistance in the form of personnel experienced with this type of phenomenon. I'll be placing the two under your watch and I want you to work with them to resolve this before it blows up in our faces. They'll be arriving by air sometime early tomorrow morning. See to it that they have someplace to stay in the mansion, and try to figure out some way to keep Alucard away from them.

"I'll try my best sir, but you know how he is. I think it might be best if we just don't keep him informed of this for a while." Seras paused to think for a moment, "Oh, would it be alright if I put them up in the two rooms down the hall from where I am? It'd be easier to keep track of everyone."

"Yes Seras, that's fine. Now get to work, you have a lot to get done before they arrive." Seras saluted and walked out of the room, this time just phasing through the door. She stopped outside the door for a moment, considering where to start. Integra was right, she had a lot of work to get done now. Finally she decided that she'd work on the living arrangements first and headed down in the direction of her own room.


	4. Old Friends

Deadly and Blonde

Chapter 4: Old friends

Half an hour after leaving MIST headquarters, Aya found herself sitting in the back of a battered old C-130 Hercules bound for Hereford, apparently the agency didn't want to bother with all the red tape that getting her guns aboard a passenger plane would entail. Aya looked around, she was seated on a bench running the length of the cargo bay up against the fuselage of the plane. The cargo bay was mostly empty except for a few crates and the small pile of her luggage and equipment lying nearby. There was nobody else in the bay with her, so this was going to be a very long, boring flight. Aya sighed, "Ah, the glamorous life of an FBI agent."

"Yeah, tell me about it." Aya looked up as a young woman walked through the hatch into the cargo area. She didn't recognize her for a moment since she was wearing a set of tactical armor complete with headgear. The woman smiled and pulled off her helmet. "Hey Aya, long time no see."

"Tamsen?! What in the world are you doing here?"

The woman shot her a mischievous grin, "Now, is that any way to greet an old friend? Rupert sent me of course. Sir Hellsing apparently managed to convince him that you shouldn't go completely alone, so I'm here as your partner in crime for this one."

Aya got up from her seat and embraced the other woman. "Of course, how rude of me. It's great to see you again Tam." She released her and stepped back, "I thought you were transferred to the New York office."

"Well I was, but once I was promoted to a full hunter they decided to let me choose which office I'd work out of. I knew that you were still down a hunter since Rupert retired from that and took up his administrative position. Not that I thought the LA office really needed another hunter since you're as good as a dozen of us, but I love it around here and I missed you."

"I missed you too. Why didn't you tell me you were coming back?"

"Well, I had wanted it to be a surprise, but then this situation came up and I got pulled for duty since I'm the only one who you've ever kept and gotten along with as a partner for any period of time." She gave Aya a little grin, "Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside."

Aya laughed, she had worked most of her career in MIST as something of a lone wolf, she had always avoided having a partner since she didn't want to have to worry about alienating them with her abilities. Then about a year and a half ago she had been assigned to take a trainee under her wing. The Bureau had seen Aya as the only possible mentor for the girl. Tamsen had exhibited some pyrokinetic abilities, so it had been deemed appropriate to pair her with the only other MIST agent with 'Superpowers'.

"Well, it's great to have you with me again. From what I understand about what's going on this time, this situation in London could either be an isolated incident or be very, very bad. Of course, with my luck I'm sure it'll be the latter rather than the former." If the creature was indeed a Mossback, then it meant that someone was pulling the strings behind another neoteny project. Mossbacks weren't a naturally occurring type of NMC, so it had to be made by _someone_.

Tamsen yawned, "I'm sorry, I haven't been able to adjust to the time zone change yet. I actually only got in to California yesterday."

"I understand. Take a nap, you'll need to be rested for this mission."

"Thanks." The girl yawned again. She pulled off her armored vest and sat down on the bench next to Aya. She nodded off almost immediately and fell asleep in a sitting position. It wasn't long however before she flopped over to wind up leaning on Aya's shoulder. Aya looked at the sleeping girl's face for a second and smiled. During their time together, Tamsen had largely come to regard Aya as something of a mother figure. Tamsen had been orphaned as a child, she'd grown up with her father until she was eleven and her mother had died before she'd ever known her. Aya brushed a stray bit of hair out of the girl's face and smiled; she could still remember so clearly when they'd first met.

At first neither had been thrilled with the pairing, Aya didn't really know what to do with the rookie, and Tamsen had been intimidated by Aya. The administration had never explained to either of them why they'd been paired together, so seeing one another's special abilities had surprised both of them. It had been about a month after they'd been paired together that they were sent on their first real mission together. The two had been assigned to clean out a derelict ship that had come ashore in a cove to the south and had shown evidence of NMC activity.

The ship had turned out being something of an ambush. Aya and Tamsen had been one of two teams that were sent in at the same time. The other two hunters that had been sent with them had gone in first and not reported back. Assuming the worst, Aya had lead Tamsen through the ship. They had combed through most of the wreck without any traces of their allies or any NMC activity when they came to the main forward hold. They found both of the other hunters just outside the hatch to the cargo area dead, it looked as though they had gotten in the way of something trying to get in or out of the hold and it had swept them aside. Both of their heads had been smashed flat against either wall next to the bulkhead. To Aya's surprise, Tamsen hadn't even been phased by the grisly scene.

Aya could sense that there was something very nasty waiting for them in the cargo bay, but had gone in anyway. The hold had been pitch black and upon walking away from the entrance to search for a light switch, the door had slammed shut behind them. By this time, the light sticks that they had with them had started to fail, and they couldn't see any further than a few feet in any direction. Then Tamsen asked her if she had a light. Aya had responded that she'd only had the glow-stick with her, upon which the girl said that she'd meant a match, or a lighter or any other source of flame. "What would you need that for?" Aya had asked of the girl, unsure what she thought she could do with a lighter or a match.

"Just trust me." The girl had responded. And, figuring that she'd nothing to lose by it right now Aya had cast pyrokinesis. To her shock, the ball of flame stopped short a few inches from her hand. The burning sphere hovered and floated over to float above Tamsen's open palm. It was then that they realized the gravity of their situation. The orb of flame provided enough illumination for the two to finally be able to get a good view of their surroundings. As the ship was lying at a slant, the floor of the bay sloped down from where the two stood. The lower half of the room was flooded and teeming with bog-divers, and to Aya's dismay, in their center was an ocean-diver.

"Well, this is certainly bad." The girl had said. "Any weaknesses?"

"Fire mostly. But I don't have enough energy to be able to wipe all of them out, and these assault rifles aren't going to cut it."

"Alright. I'm going to have to ask you to stand back for just a moment then." Tamsen walked out in front of Aya and stood there with her hands outstretched for a moment. Then the ball of flame floated ponderously away, until it was half way between them and where the water started. "You might want to get behind something, this place is going to get very toasty in a few seconds." Without questioning, Aya had backed off and ducked back behind a stack of metal sheeting.

Tamsen looked back over her shoulder to see that Aya was under cover, then turned back around to face the horde of ANMCs that were starting to advance on them now. Her eyes blazed for a moment, and the ball of flame seemed to explode. One moment later, a solid wall of flame stood between the divers and the hunters. Then the wall started to move forward. Aya could hear the cries of the dying creatures as they were systematically immolated by the inexorable wall of flame. Then the wall of flame had faltered, and Tamsen fell to the ground. Aya ran to the girl's side, she was still alive and conscious, just exhausted. The girl had managed to take out the vast majority of the infestation.

"I'm going to finish this now. Can you guard yourself against some flame for a couple of seconds?" The girl had nodded yes, and Aya walked forward almost to the water's edge. There weren't many bog-divers left, but the ocean-diver was slowly pulling itself out of the water. It seemed injured, but was still a serious threat. Aya closed her eyes and concentrated, and cast Inferno. She cast it twice, and was able to wipe out all of the remaining NMCs in the hold. Exhausted, she collapsed next to her partner and both slipped into unconsciousness.

Aya had awoken in a hospital bed, and was relieved when she looked to the side to see that Tamsen was in the next bed over. Rupert was sitting in a chair between the two beds. "You two gave us quite a scare last night. We sent in all of the hunters we could find, only to find you two unconscious in a room full of barbecued bog-divers."

"Is she alright?" Aya asked as she gestured to Tamsen.

Rupert turned to look at the girl, "Yes, she'll be fine. She's just exhausted herself." He looked back to Aya, "You did well, get some rest and we'll debrief the both of you when you're both feeling up to it."

Things had gotten much better after that. The two women had found comfort in each other, both of them having experienced similar isolation due to their abilities and both of them having gone through rather traumatizing childhood experiences. The two had become close friends, and Tamsen had eventually adopted Aya as something of a surrogate mother.

Aya smiled, but was shaken out of her pensive state a moment later when the plane hit some turbulence and with a small cry Tamsen fell off the bench. "Ow, talk about your nasty wake-up calls." She looked up at Aya, and at the dent in her jacket at the shoulder where her head had been resting. "I'm sorry, did I fall asleep on you?" She noticed Aya seemed a bit dazed, "Did I wake you?"

"Oh, no; I was just thinking about when we first met." She smiled and helped Tamsen back up to sit next to her. "Go back to sleep. Just remember to fasten your seatbelt this time." She didn't have to ask twice, she heard the click of the seatbelt being fastened, and felt the comforting presence of the girl leaning against her again. Aya smiled, she'd best be getting some sleep on this flight, it was a long way from Los Angeles to London. Aya closed her eyes, and drifted off into sleep.


	5. Lost Lives

Deadly and Blonde

Chapter 5: Lost Lives

Aya awoke to the sound of soft crying. Looking next to her she found Tamsen curled up in a ball on the seat, her legs pulled up against her body and her arms wrapped around those, her head resting on her knees and her dark hair spilling over down the front of her legs almost reaching the floor. Aya shook her head for a moment to clear the lingering traces of sleep from her brain. She reached over an put her hand on Tamsen's shoulder, "What's wrong?"

Tamsen quickly uncurled herself and returned to a sitting position, making a quick effort to wipe any remaining traces of tears from her face. "Oh, it's nothing really. I'd just thought I'd never have to come back here again. Or I'd hoped at least; not many happy memories of this place for me." She glanced at Aya, "I ever tell you I used to live in England?"

Aya shook her head, "No, you didn't. I wouldn't even have been able to guess, you do a great job of covering up any accent you might have picked up." After a few moments of silence following that last comment, she decided to try a different approach. "So, do you want to talk about it? You don't have to if you don't want to, I don't want to pry."

"No, it's alright. It'll be nice to tell someone for once." She paused for a moment to collect her thoughts and shift to a more comfortable position. "Both of my parents died when I was very young, and I spent most of my childhood being shuffled around through endless numbers of foster homes. The last couple I ended up staying with moved into a house they owned in London shortly after I came to live with them. They were a nice couple, and I probably would have ended up staying with them if it hadn't been interrupted. Apparently they thought the same since they left everything to me in their will.

"I came home one evening to find the house in shambles, furniture broken and overturned, and blood spattered everywhere. I ran to the kitchen, where the phone was so I could call the police. I found my foster mother there, lying on the kitchen floor in a puddle of blood with half of the back of her head missing. My foster father was lying nearby, I'd thought he was dead too, but he called my name. I went to him then and he told me to get out of the house as fast as I could, there was someone still in the house, and he didn't know where he was.

"He didn't last long after that, he'd been shot in the liver and died in my arms a few minutes later. I didn't know what to do then, I was scared beyond moving at that point. Then I heard the back door open. I kinda' lost it at that point, I grabbed a knife off the counter and went to the back hallway not really caring what would happen to me. I found him there, the thief, the murderer; dragging himself out the door. He wasn't in very good shape, he had a stab wound in his leg and was losing a lot of blood. If it weren't for that fact, I'd probably have ended up getting myself killed." She sighed and continued, "I jumped on him, stabbed him…it seemed like I was at it forever then, it was probably only five or six times. But I'd killed him, within an hour I'd had one of my parents die in my arms, and I'd killed a man. I was eleven at the time, so I had an easy time dodging my way out of any criminal charges. Nobody suspected the little eleven year old girl could have killed the man.

"In order to avoid being put back into the adoption pool, I made an arrangement with the parents of my only real friend at the time. As it turned out, her father was the land lord of an apartment building. I opted to get my own apartment next to my friend's so we could say that I was staying with the family. I used the money that I'd been left to pay the rent even though they said I didn't have to. The next few years were good, my friend's parents let her move in with me, and we roomed together through most of middle school. But then my luck, or lack thereof decided to kick in. My friend was diagnosed with terminal leukemia and died two months later.

"I'd helped to pay for her treatment as much as I could, and it left me largely broke. Even without the money, my friend's family was willing to let me continue to stay in the apartment. I felt guilty though, staying without paying for it, so I got a job through one of the other residents. She ended up really being my only friend at the time, I'd known her for a while previously and she'd seemed nice and all, but I'd not really been that close to her up until that point. Anyway, she got me a job as sort of a secretary where she worked at a police station.

"It was a pretty nice job, it didn't really pay all that much, but it was enough for me to help pay my way and not feel guilty about staying in the building. We became close friends, she wasn't really even all that much older than me at the time. I guess I kinda' fell in love with her at some point, I don't think she knew though." Tamsen paused, considering how to go on, "I really never got the chance to tell her, she was killed in action only a few months after we became close. After her death there just wasn't anything anchoring me over there anymore, so I stayed just long enough to go to her funeral, then I ran away to America. I've already told you everything after that, how I ended up in MIST and all." She sighed and leaned back against Aya.

"I'd just hoped I'd never have to come back here again. This place is like a black hole, sucking in lives…especially ones that I'm close to." She closed her eyes, trying to suppress the tears that once again threatened to come.

Aya stroked her hair gently, "Hey, it's me this time, you know I'm too damn stubborn to die on you any time soon. Now stop worrying about it and get some rest, we have a long flight ahead of us, and I get the feeling that we won't be getting all that much sleep once we get to London."

HR 

Seras stepped back and looked around at her handiwork. It had taken her a good four hours, but she'd gotten two rooms prepared for the two visiting specialists. Hell, she'd practically had to re-build the rooms with the condition they'd been in. Each of the two rooms now had a clean bed, a dresser, and a table and chair setup much like her own room. Fortunately the bathrooms hadn't been in very bad condition, only in need of a bit of dusting, ok a lot of dusting, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

She walked back to her own room and sat down for a moment, it was almost two in the morning now. I suppose it's time I go on patrol; wouldn't want any more of those things popping up unexpectedly. Seras quickly stripped out of the clothes she'd been wearing, took a quick shower to get rid of all the dust, and dressed in her hunting outfit. She patted her belt to make sure she had her radio and a few spare clips and started walking towards the exit of Hellsing Manor. She felt better once she got outside, her earlier musings forgotten. Not quite sure where to start, she decided to head back over to where she'd seen the first thing the other night.

It took her a good two hours to walk there from HQ, but she wasn't in any sort of hurry and was taking her time. She reached the intersection at about four in the morning, there was almost no evidence of the battle that had taken place there the previous night. There was a covering over the dent she'd made in the brick wall, but otherwise nothing. All the blood had been cleaned up, there was no broken glass in the street, and there was nothing to indicate where the hell the thing might have come from. Seras wondered if she might be able to find and question any of the people that had been at the scene the previous night, but realized she hadn't really gotten a good enough look at any of them for her to be able to recognize anyone.

Seras muttered a curse to herself and leaned back against the wall she was standing near considering what to do next. She jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder, and nearly shot a hole in the owner of said hand. "Jeez, you should say something before you grab someone like that, you scared me half to death." Seras' brain suddenly wandered off for a moment on the implications of the phrase "Scared me half to death" as a vampire

"Sorry to have startled you," the owner of the voice was a young man, not much younger than Seras appeared to be, he had a girl with him probably his girlfriend Seras thought. "You're the woman from last night right? I…we just wanted to say thanks; for saving our lives." He seemed frightened, almost to the point of soiling himself actually; his girlfriend wasn't in much better shape.

"Well…you're welcome I guess. It's just kinda' what I do. You don't have to be afraid of me you know, I won't bite." Ouch…bad pun "I wonder if you could help me with something. Would you be able to tell me where that thing came from in the first place, at least from which direction or something?"

The young man seemed to relax a bit with Seras' assurance and shook his head, "I'm sorry, it was already here when we walked out of the store. Is there anything else we can do?"

Seras shook her head slowly, "Sorry, not at the moment I'm afraid. I just need to try to figure out where the hell that thing came from." Seras knew she was no investigator, but she was curious and there didn't seem to be anyone else trying to figure anything out at the moment. She figured it was probably useless anyway and made up her mind to start on her way back soon. She was about to start walking away when she noticed that the pair was still standing in front of her looking like they wanted to say something. Finally the girl lightly elbowed the boy and he spoke up.

"We were just curious…umm, what are you? I mean being slammed into that wall hard enough to make a hole like that should have killed a normal person."

"Ok, but you have to promise not to tell anyone, you're not really supposed to know that I exist. I'm a vampire."

"Wow, that's what we thought. It's just so incredible to know that vampires actually exist. Don't worry though, we won't tell anyone."

A moment or two passed where neither party knew quite what to say to the other and, figuring she'd probably said enough Seras decided it was time for her to get going. She gave the kids a nod and walked away, they seemed like nice enough kids but they asked too many damn questions. Eh, they'd probably figured out what I was already anyway. Seras wondered what to do now, she still had most of the night left to kill and there wasn't really anything else in particular that needed doing for now.

After a few minutes of walking completely aimlessly, she found herself in familiar territory, she was in the area where she'd lived before that night in the little town of Cheddar what seemed like a life time ago. Seras sighed, as far as she had progressed since then, she still wasn't really able to completely put her humanity behind her, and the memories stirring in her mind were enough to bring a single red tear to her eye. She quickly swiped it away, staining the back of her glove but not really caring, she could think up some other reason for it later.


	6. Foundling

Deadly and Blonde

Chapter 6: Foundling

Eventually Seras found herself standing outside a park that she'd frequented back when she'd lived in this area. It had been years since she'd last been there, but everything still seemed the same she reflected as she started walking through. There was a small playground in the middle of the park, with a cluster of benches nearby. She used to like to sit over in the benches and watch the children play, it all seemed so long ago in her mind; so much had changed since those days. Seras wandered over towards the benches and noticed there was a small figure sitting on one of them, seemingly ignorant to her presence.

Seras approached the figure, moving slowly so as not to startle whoever it was that was sitting there. As she got a bit closer, and could better make out the shape of the figure Seras realized that it was a girl, probably no more than twelve years old. More curious than anything else, she walked up to where the child was sitting. "Excuse me, are you lost?" she inquired. The girl looked up to examine the person before her. Her eyes paused when they landed on the insignia badge on Seras' outfit and an expression of abject terror swept across her face before she got it under control again.

"You're going to kill me now, aren't you?" The girl asked in a meek voice. This really had Seras puzzled, why would she want to kill a child. Perhaps she'd heard some of the nasty rumors about the Hellsing organization that had been circulating ever since the incident with Incognito at the Tower of London. But that look she had wasn't an expression that a girl that young should know, it seemed too…adult.

"Why ever would I want to do a thing like that?" The girl shook her head and smiled sadly.

"I guess you _didn't_ notice then." She smiled timidly at Seras, then lifted one hand to her mouth and pushed up one side of her upper lip. Fangs, smaller than her own, but definitely not just the abnormally sharp cuspid teeth that some people had. So she was a vampire then, but who would make such a young vampire? This girl looked to be even younger than Helena was. Seras pulled off her glasses and took a closer look at the girl. She did indeed have the pale skin and red eyes that were the more obviously prominent feature of people with their affliction. Seras noticed that she also looked very weak and tired.

Not really sure of what to say, Seras simply said, "Oh, I see." It sounded somewhat ridiculous, but this wasn't really a situation she'd been prepared for. "May I sit?" She asked. The girl moved over on the bench and motioned for her to go ahead. After sitting there in silence for a few minutes Seras finally got her thoughts in order and spoke up. "I don't think I've ever met a vampire as young as you are physically. How long have you been like this anyway?"

The girl still looked nervous but still answered, "I've been a vampire for a bit more than six years now." She looked up as Seras, "So you're not going to kill me?"

Seras shook her head, "No, I'm not going to kill you. Generally speaking, we only hunt down and kill vampires that are causing problems; Running around the city killing people, raising demons, trying to overturn the government…things like that. There are actually a number of vampires that I know of living in the city that we've largely just left alone since they don't cause any problems." Seras supposed that this girl didn't know about the small vampire community in London that subsisted largely on stolen medicinal blood, if she did she probably wouldn't look so hungry.

"I guess that makes sense. I've been a good girl," she said somewhat depreciatingly, "I haven't drunk blood in more than a month. I wonder how long it'll be before I die of starvation, if I even _can_ die of starvation. It's been hard finding mice and other such things recently since it's winter."

"I'm impressed, you must be really strong willed to be able to go that long without feeding and not just kill the next thing that you come across. It's really hard to resist the bloodlust"

The girl laughed bitterly, "What would you know. 'really hard,' It's more like damn near bloody impossible. But I wouldn't really expect some soldier from a vampire hunting organization to know about that sort of thing."

"But I do know. Believe me, I know. You're not the only vampire in this city kiddo." Seras flashed the girl a toothy grin she knew would show off her fangs. "How'd you end up like this anyway? I know that generally people so young don't end up getting turned."

"I was homeless as a child, roaming the streets with other homeless kids trying to survive. I was captured one day while I was scavenging for food. I don't know really who I was captured by, or really why they would want to experiment on me. When I woke up at their facility, I was already like this. I managed to overhear two people talking about me, they said that I wasn't what they were trying for, that I couldn't be controlled, and to kill me. I escaped then, I killed one of their guards on my way out. I haven't aged at all since then."

"So you are an artificial vampire. That makes more sense, no real vampires turn people so young."

The girl looked shocked, "You mean there are real vampires? I thought that it was all just stories and stuff."

Seras nodded, "You're looking at one. I was turned the old fashioned way, bite to the neck." She pulled down her collar a little to show the two small scars where Alucard had bitten her what seemed like a lifetime ago. Strangely enough, those two scars had never healed. Seras thought for a moment, this girl was still much to young to be out on her own like this. Sir Integra would probably tear her a new one over this, but she supposed it was worth it. "I think you'd better come with me." She told the girl. "We can get you cleaned up and fed, then figure out if maybe we can't find a job for you or something."

"Really? I can come with you?" The girl looked to be on the edge of tears, "Is…Is there any way to cure me?"

Seras shook her head slowly, "I know that there's no going back for me, but for you I'm not so sure about. We've never been able to examine a live artificial vampire before." She gave the girl a hopeful smile, "Who knows, maybe we'll be able to find a way to reverse your condition." The girl started to cry, "Hey now, don't cry. You can't afford to lose any more blood right now."

"What are you talking about? I'm crying, not bleeding." Seras took a closer look at her face. The girl still had real tears, salty water not the blood real vampires cried.

"I guess that's one more difference. I cry blood." She showed the girl the stain on the back of her glove where she'd wiped her face earlier that night.

"Wow, that must make such a mess."

Seras grinned, "You have no idea. Whenever I have the occasion to cry it drives the maids crazy, blood is notoriously difficult to get out of upholstery. It's scary looking at yourself afterwards when you're trying to clean up too. Looks like someone tried to stab your eyes out or something." The girl giggled at this, and Seras smiled. "My name's Seras by the way."

"Shielle," the girl replied quietly, "My name is Shielle."

Taking the younger woman by the hand Seras stood up, "Well, I guess we'd better get walking. I want to make sure to get you indoors well before sunrise, I don't know how severely you react to sunlight." She eyed Shielle questioningly.

Shielle shook her head as they started walking down the path towards the exit to the park, "I don't know either to tell you the truth. I knew that sunlight is supposed to be one of a vampires largest weaknesses, so I didn't really want to experiment."

Almost as soon as they'd stepped past the threshold that marked the end of the park, Seras' phone rang. She sighed somewhat irritably and answered. "Special Lieutenant Victoria."

"Seras, Walter seems to be busy with something, so I'd like you to come back here and get a car so you can go pick up our guests at the airport. Come up to my office first to make a report on anything you've found tonight."

"Yes Sir Integra." The phone went dead almost before she was done speaking. Seras sighed again and shook her head. This was going to be a long night.

"Who was that?"

"That was my boss. I'm still trying to figure out a way to explain to her why I'm bringing you back with me."

----------------------------------------

Seras was still trying to figure it out as she walked down the hall to Integra's office and knocked on the door. "I want you to stay close to me, alright? I know she can be a bit intimidating, but don't be scared." She whispered to Shielle.

"Come in Seras." Seras pushed open the door and walked into the room to stand in front of Integra's desk. "There is a car waiting for you in the garage. Their plane should be arriving at about 9 at Hereford, that's the military airport; the sticker on the car should be enough to get you in, but bring along your company ID just in case. There's a divider between the front and the back and the windows in the driver's compartment are darkened enough so that it shouldn't give you any trouble driving during the day." She looked up. "Seras, who's that behind you?"

Shielle stepped out from where she was half hidden behind Seras. Integra immediately noticed the red eyes and pale skin. "Seras, you didn't…"

"No, of course not; I found her while I was out on patrol. She was artificially turned, against her will apparently. I couldn't just leave her out there.""

Integra cradled her head in her hands, one more problem to add to the stack. "Very well, she can stay; _for now_. I'm placing her under your supervision. We'll talk about this more later. Now go pick up our visitors from the airport before they have to wait too long."

"Thank you Sir." Seras spun on her heel and marched out of Integra's office with Shielle next to her. She breathed a sigh of relief once she had closed the door behind them. "Well, I guess we'd better be on our way. We'll stop by the kitchen on the way to the garage and get you something to eat."


	7. Reunion

Deadly and Blonde

Chapter 7: Reunion

Seras peeked into the kitchen and was relieved to find that it was empty. She pushed open the door and walked in, Shielle trailing behind her. There was a blood refrigerator hidden behind one of the cabinets that Alucard didn't know about, she mentally thanked Walter as she pushed aside the cabinet unit and pulled a pair of blood packets from the fridge. She tossed one to the girl behind her and put the other in her pocket. "Wait to open that until we get in the car, it'll make a mess if it squirts while you're walking with it."

"Alright, thank you." Shielle responded, Seras smiled at her and led her down to the garage.

The car that awaited them was what would generally be considered a stereotypical secret-service car, an all black SUV with heavily tinted windows and what appeared to be armor plating under the paint. "Well it certainly looks well armored enough. Hop in the passenger side and let's get going kiddo." Seras put action to words and hopped up into the driver's side seat. "Now let's see if I can actually remember how to get there…"

Shielle started fiddling with her blood packet almost as soon as they were in the car. "Umm, how am I supposed to open this without making a mess?"

"Just tear the tip off the narrow tube, drink it like a juice box." She watched as the girl tried to tear the tab off the end of the tube without squirting blood all over herself. Shielle barely seemed to be able to keep her grip on the packet. Wow, she must have been weaker than I'd thought "Here, let me get that for you." She reached over and easily pulled the tip off of the tube.

"Thanks, I guess I really have become weak due to the lack of blood." She closed her lips over the straw and took a long sip. "Oh, that's so good. I feel stronger already." Shielle quickly drained off the rest of the blood bag. She sank back into her seat and sighed contentedly, "It's amazing how much better human blood tastes than rat's blood." Seras pulled the other blood packet out of her pocket and tossed it to Shielle.

"Here have another, I know it's been a long time since you've last fed so you probably really need it." Shielle had no trouble tearing the tube open on this one, and drank at a somewhat more leisurely pace than she had before. Seras glanced at her a few times while she was driving and was glad to see that a slight flush was returning to the girl's face indicating that she was safe again from starvation for now.

Seras smiled to herself and reminisced briefly on how difficult it had been for her to be able to start drinking blood. She was a bit surprised that this girl didn't seem to have any qualms over the matter, but figured since Shielle had been raised on the streets she was probably a bit more accepting of the vampiric dietary needs then Seras had been initially.

The rest of the trip passed quietly, Shielle engrossed in her feeding and Seras trying as best she could to get them to Hereford without getting lost.

HR 

The pilot set the plane down in a textbook perfect landing, the slight bump was enough to shake Aya awake however. She blinked for a moment, trying to remember where she was. Tamsen was still lying down on the bench sound asleep with her head on Aya's lap, glistening salt trails running down her face where her tears had fallen earlier. Aya brushed the girl's hair out of her face and gently shook her awake. "Hey sleepy-head, we're here."

"Hmm? Wha…? No, I don't wanna' go to school today." Aya tried to hold back her laughter, but failed miserably. The stifled giggling was enough to summon Tamsen back to semi-awareness, she sat up and shook her head. "Ugh, how long was I out?"

"About six hours or so. We just landed, let's get our stuff together." Aya stood and looked out one of the small windows. The plane was taxiing towards a large open space where three large, military looking trucks were waiting. She saw a black SUV pull into the area a moment before the plane turned towards the area, obstructing her view. Turning away from the window, she walked over towards the small pile of baggage she'd be carrying personally and pulled on her backpack.

The plane came to a stop with a slight jolt and a crewman came back to the cargo hold to open the rear door. Aya breathed a sigh of relief as the ramp extended; they'd been cooped up in the plane for about eleven hours and she needed to get out side. She started down the loading ramp as soon as the far end had hit the ground, and walked out into the grey London morning. Stretching her arms, she looked around; it looked to be early morning here, she wasn't really sure exactly what time it was since being on the plane for that long had pretty much destroyed her internal clock.

A small woman with short blond hair leapt out of the recently arrived SUV and bounded up to her. The first thing Aya noticed was that she was wearing sunglasses and a hat even in the pre-dawn darkness. She snorted to herself Heh, probably that 'vampire' I'll be working with. She doesn't look very impressive.

Seras walked out to where the plane had come to stop, over to the tall blonde woman that she figured had to be Aya Brea. "Hello Ms. Brea, I'm Lieutennant Victoria but you can call me Seras; I'll be your partner for the duration of this mission." She offered her hand and Aya took it. "Now, let's see about getting the rest of your gear unloaded." Before Aya could stop her, she'd already ascended into the plane's belly hold. Aya waited for her to return, there wasn't really anything left in there that she'd be able to carry; most of the gear had been packed away in large equipment cases probably weighing around three hundred pounds apiece.

A minute later, a blood curdling scream echoed out of the cargo hold, shattering the stillness of the night. Without thinking, Aya drew her service pistol and sprinted up the ramp into the cavernous fuselage of the cargo plane. She froze there, Tamsen was backed up against a large crate and was pale as a sheet; she was staring at Seras who was holding two of the equipment cases and looking puzzled. Tamsen was stuttering, "Y…y…yo…you…but you're dead."

Seras, not really sure how to respond to this simply shrugged, "Well, yes I suppose I am if you want to be technical about it."

"No, I…I mean I know you, or I used to know you. You can't be here, I…I went to your funeral, I remember." She was looking confused and terrified all at once, her feet scrambling to find purchase on the floor as she tried to push herself further back; away from this specter of her past.

Seras closed her eyes and thought. "Tamsen?"

Tamsen nodded, but didn't get up.

"It's been so long, I didn't recognize you. The last time I saw you, you were maybe fifteen years old? You've changed a lot since then." Seras put down the two cases she was carrying and walked over to where Tamsen was cowering. She kneeled in front of the younger woman and embraced her. Tamsen struggled for a moment, then started to cry.

"Why did you leave me? I missed you so much," she sobbed.

"I'm sorry I had to leave you, but it was something I had to do at the time. I had to disappear since I was supposed to be dead." She stroked Tamsen's long hair with one hand and continued the embrace with the other. "Thanks for coming to my funeral by the way, it meant a lot to me to see you there."

Tamsen laughed, "Well that's not something you hear every day. 'Thanks for coming to my funeral,' spoken by the guest of honor."

"Well, I mean, it's not like I _wasn't_ dead."

"But you're…"

"Dead…technically. No pulse, no breathing unless I need to talk, low body temperature. Kinda' happens when you get turned into a vampire." She flashed her fangs, "See? Anyway, I think we'd better get going, your partner is probably getting impatient and we can talk more later."

"Okay." She let Seras help her to her feet and grabbed her pack from where she'd dropped it. Seras picked up her crates again and led the way out of the cargo hold over to the black SUV she'd arrived in. Aya had walked back out to stand on the landing field once she saw that her friend and partner was in no danger and followed the two over to the car when she saw them descend the ramp.

Seras walked around to the back of the car to put the cases and packs in the trunk, leaving the two MIST agents alone for a moment. "So I take it you two know each other already?" asked Aya.

Tamsen nodded, "She's the police woman I told you about; you know, the one who died right before I left?" Aya nodded an affirmative.

Seras walked over to the pair and opened the rear doors of the car. "Well, I think we'd better get going. I'm sure you two would like to take a nap to help with the jet lag, and I'd like to get back before the sun rises."

Tamsen and Aya got into the car, finally noticing the small figure sitting in the front passenger seat. Seras got in a moment later and turned in her chair to face them, "This is Shielle," she said gesturing towards the child in the front seat, "I met her earlier this evening."

Shielle turned around to face the other two passengers and smiled at them, "Hi, it's nice to meet you." Aya and Tamsen both greeted her in turn and Seras started the car.

"It's about half an hour from here to Headquarters, the rest of your equipment should be following us in just a few minutes when they finish unloading," said Seras as she started driving. The car passed back through the security checkpoint without any problems and started off towards Hellsing Manor.

HR 

Sorry it took so long to get this chapter up, it took me forever to get the dialog to sound how I wanted it to; well, that and some general writer's block. I've already started on the next chapter now so I hope it won't be as long between updates as it was last time. I'd like to thank everyone who's sent in reviews, they really help keep me going when I start getting frustrated with the story.

I've also been working on writing and revising a piece of original fiction I had started back in high school. It's posted on my website at if you'd like to read it. Feel free to post any thoughts you might have on either of these pieces on the message board there, or e-mail me (the link is at the bottom of the page above all the web comic links).


	8. Issues

Deadly and Blonde

Chapter 8: Issues

Seras got them back to Hellsing Manor all in one piece, not even getting lost along the way. As soon as she walked in with the others, Walter was waiting to tell her to go up and see Integra right away. Yawning slightly she led the two weary travelers and somewhat hyper young girl upstairs to talk to her boss. She hoped that Tamsen would be alright, she still had a somewhat wild look in her eyes and she hung back from the others a bit as they walked up to Integra's office.

Seras had barely moved to knock on the door when they swung open and Integra motioned for her to lead the group into the room. She led them in and the doors closed behind them once all of them had entered. Integra gestured at the small semi-circle of chairs in front of her desk, "Please, have a seat." She waited until all of them were seated before starting, "As you know, you are here because we have had an encounter with what you call an ANMC. If the descriptions were accurate, it was what you people have dubbed a mossback. You've already met Lieutenant Victoria, she is one of our two resident vampires.

"The three of you," she pointed to Seras, Aya, and Tamsen, "will be a task force. Your mission is to investigate where this thing came from, and to eliminate any further threat related to this incident. I have been informed of your bounty point system, to keep matters simple we will be furnishing any weapons or equipment that you require for this mission, you can work out the points with your boss when you get back home." Integra paced behind her desk for a moment, "Seras, show these two to their rooms, It's getting past morning and the bunch of you have a long night ahead of you. I'll let you decide what you want to do with the child for now. Dismissed."

Seras led the crew out of Integra's office. "Well, she was…abrupt," commented Aya. "I couldn't get a word in edgewise."

Seras smiled back at her as she led them down towards the dungeons, "She's always like that, you'll get used to it eventually. She never really got the chance to learn how to socialize normally as a child, so she doesn't really know how to act friendly." They walked on in silence until they reached the section of hall where their rooms were. "Well, these are your rooms," she motioned to one door immediately to the left of her own and then to another directly across the hall. "I'm sorry they're not really very nice looking, I had to fix them up on pretty short notice."

Aya nodded appreciatively, "I'm sure they'll be fine. In fact, no matter how bad they are I can almost guarantee you I've slept in worse." Tamsen stood there wordlessly and seemed intent on staring a hole through her feet. Aya put a hand on her shoulder and guided her to the door of the room adjacent to Seras', then entered the room across the hall and closed the door leaving Seras and Shielle alone in the hall.

Seras looked down at Shielle, "I guess you can stay with me for now, we don't have time to find you your own room. Is that alright with you?"

"Oh, gee, I don't know. I think I'd much rather find a sewer pipe to sleep in, or maybe if I'm lucky I'll be able to find a nice cargo container down by the river somewhere."

"I'll take that as a yes. Come on, let's get some shut-eye; I'm exhausted," Said Seras as she ushered Shielle into her room. She closed the door and flopped down on the couch, "You can sleep on the bed tonight if you'd like, you probably need it more than I do. I don't know how sharp your senses are, but if it's too loud or light you can close the lid on the bed by pressing the button on that remote."

"But where will you sleep?"

"I'll be fine on the couch, don't worry about me. Oh, there are some clothes in the dresser if you don't want to wear that outfit to bed. There's not much that would fit you, but you could use one of the t-shirts as a nightie if you'd like." Seras lay back on the couch and closed her eyes, she could hear Shielle go rifling through her dresser and change out of her clothes. When it sounded like she had finished, Seras sat up to take a look. Shielle had changed into a plain white t-shirt which reached down just past her knees and was working on folding her dirty clothes. "Oh, don't worry about folding those right now, I'm going to have them washed while you're sleeping."

"Oh. Alright." She paused, "Thank you, you've been very kind to me."

Seras smiled at her, "Don't worry about it. Now get to bed, you've had a long night." Shielle walked over to Seras' bed and got in. Seras helped to tuck her in before starting towards her door, picking up her guest's clothes on her way, "I'm going to be out for a few minutes, will you be alright here alone?" Shielle nodded and Seras stepped out of the room. Seras sighed, this was getting much more complicated than she'd expected, she wasn't really quite sure what to do about Shielle yet, since it probably wouldn't be a good idea to have her accompany them on missions.

Seras continued to let her mind wander while she went about some minor errands. First she dropped Shielle's laundry off, next she went to seek out Walter. She found him sitting in the library at one of the computer terminals. "Walter, are you busy?"

"It's nothing that I can't put off for a few minutes. I probably won't be very busy until your group starts bringing in some information."

Seras nodded, "You know about the young girl I brought back with me earlier right?" Walter nodded an affirmative. "Well, I'd like to see about getting her some clothes. I don't think that she has anything but what she came off the street with."

"I see. Very well, I'll go shopping for some clothes later."

"Thank you Walter, I appreciate it. I'll pay you back tomorrow night, just tell me how much it came to."

Walter grinned and bowed, "As you wish."

Seras laughed, then turned and left the room to head back down to the dungeons for some well deserved rest. She paused for a moment in front of Tamsen's door, she could hear faint sobbing coming from within the room. Seras sighed, she knew she'd have to confront this eventually, but she was tired and she'd been hoping for a little more time to figure out just what to tell the only person left who knew her from her former life. Steeling herself, she knocked softly on the door.

"Come in," a soft voice said from within the room.

Seras slowly pushed the door open and walked into the room, shutting the door behind her. Tamsen was curled up on the bed in a fetal position, hugging her pillow to her and sobbing into it. Seras walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, unsure of how to proceed she started rubbing Tamsen's back to try to get her to calm down. Seras tried to think of something to say as she tried to soothe her friend. At least I hope she's still my friend Finally, as Tamsen's sobbing began to subside, Seras got up the courage to say something. "I…I'm sorry I had to leave without saying anything; I had no idea you'd be so hurt."

There was a long moment of silence before Tamsen replied, sounding like she'd been deeply wounded. "Why did you have to go? I missed you so much, I thought I'd die."But I didn't, though not for lack of trying, she didn't say; it might not be a good idea to tell the older woman just how deeply she'd been hurt and why it had been so bad.

Seras took a moment to collect her thoughts before continuing, "Well, I didn't really want to have to leave. I was stuck in a tight situation and was given a choice; I could either die and stay dead or die and be reborn as a vampire." She grinned sarcastically, "not really much of a choice, was it? Anyway, as you can see I opted not to stay dead. What I didn't have a choice on was disappearing, we try to keep the public in a state of blissful ignorance about vampires and other matters that we deal with. I understand that your agency has a similar policy."

Tamsen nodded and sat up on the bed. "Yes, we do. It's just that suddenly seeing you here was something that I was completely mentally unprepared for. It took me a long time to come to terms with your death." She said as she worked on rotating herself on the bed to face Seras.

"Yeah, it took me a while to come to terms with my death too. You'd laugh if you knew how long it took before I could even drink blood. I was a very hungry little vampire for a couple of weeks there at the start. It's taken a lot of getting used to; I'm not really cut out for a life of killing and drinking blood." Tamsen was facing her now, so Seras pulled her into an embrace, "I'm so sorry. You know I'd never want to hurt you like that."

Tamsen started to cry softly into Seras' shoulder. "I know. I only wished that I had been able to tell you how I felt before you had to go," she said, her voice a hoarse whisper. "I won't make that mistake again." She paused for a moment and pulled back to look Seras in the face, "I love you."

Seras wasn't quite sure what to think of that, she had remembered that Tamsen had mentioned that she was a lesbian sometime before, but she'd had no idea of her feelings. Her brain froze for a moment as she sat there motionless, "I…I…" she started to say, but she was interrupted as Tamsen leaned forward and kissed her. Without thinking, Seras returned the kiss, but Tamsen broke it a moment or two later.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that," said Tamsen as she tried to pull away. Seras however wouldn't let her escape and once again enfolded her in a hug. Seras' thoughts were whirling around in her head like a tornado. She'd never been kissed by a girl before and didn't really know how to feel about this.

"It's alright, I'm just a bit confused right now. I'm flattered you feel that way about me though, it's sweet." After sitting there for a few more minutes in silence, Seras released Tamsen from her hug, "Are you going to be alright now?" Tamsen nodded yes. "Well, I guess I'll get going to go to bed then. We can talk about this more tomorrow okay?"

"Alright. I'll see you tonight then."

"Count on it." She stood, then leaned down and kissed Tamsen's forehead. "Now get some rest. You'll be needing it before long." Seras walked towards the door while Tamsen slid into bed. "Sleep well." She turned off the light and walked out into the hall, shutting the door softly behind her. Almost staggering now because of fatigue, Seras made her way back to her own room and walked in. The lid on the bed was open, so she decided to check on Shielle before she went to bed herself.

Shielle was asleep, curled up against the far wall of the coffin bed. Seras reached down and brushed away a few stray hairs that had fallen into her face. Shielle's hand reached out and managed to get a hold of Seras' wrist, which she hugged to herself like a stuffed animal. Seras sighed, she didn't really want to have to wake the young girl who was sleeping so soundly in her coffin. Sighing, she kicked off her boots and climbed into bed next to Shielle and pressed the button to close the lid. By the time the cover sealed itself against the base, Seras was asleep.


	9. Laments of the Lost

Deadly and Blonde

Chapter 9: Laments of the Lost

Shielle awoke in the dark, she couldn't see anything and panicked for a moment before she remembered where she was. Her face was buried in something soft and warm and there was a weight pressing down on her left side. She squirmed around a bit until she found the controls to the lid on the bed and pressed the button to open it. There was a quiet hissing noise as the seal between lid and body opened, and a wave of slightly cooler air flooded in making Shielle shiver. Along with the air came light; it wasn't much, but it was enough to let her vampiric eyes see without difficulty.

At first, what Shielle saw didn't make any sense to her. It seemed that someone was trying to smother her with a pair of blue pillows. As she gradually gained back her lucidity and realized just what those pillows really were she squeaked. She would have blushed if she'd had the blood to spare, but instead skipped directly to the flailing about to try to free herself.

Seras awoke to find Shielle struggling to free herself from a rather awkward situation. Seras was hugging Shielle to herself like a teddy bear and had the younger girl's head buried almost completely in her chest. She released Shielle once she realized what was going on and Shielle, suddenly unrestrained, managed to catapult herself completely out of the bed, smacking herself into the retractable cover above. She landed on Seras a moment later. "Ow…"

Seras struggled into a sitting position, positioning herself so that Shielle's head was resting in her lap. She had to force herself not to laugh for a moment, but had herself back under control quickly. "I'm sorry, are you alright?" she asked, brushing Shielle's hair out of her face. Shielle didn't respond right away; she had her jaw locked and her eyes squeezed shut, tears slowly pushing their way through to run down her face.

"It hurts…" said Shielle, her voice little more than a hoarse whisper. She continued to fight the tears that came to her eyes, and started to pull herself into a fetal position.

Seras looked up at the inside of the cover; there was a crack in the thick wood where Shielle's head had impacted, along with a patch of scalp. Now Seras was worried, she ran her hand down the back of the younger girl's head searching for the injury. She found a nasty bump, but it seemed that she did indeed have the benefits of improved healing abilities. Even as she watched, she could see the nasty looking contusion fade into a black and blue mark and then into nothing. Seras continued to stroke the spot where the injury had been. "There, there. The wound's already healed itself."

"Really? I thought it would be worse than that. I feel like I cracked my skull."

"Oh, you did alright. You left a bit of it stuck to the bed up there." She gestured up towards where the crack in the coffin lid was, "I guess you haven't managed to hurt yourself since you were changed. You should heal from just about anything that's not too large in no more than a minute or two."

Shielle sat up and wiped at her face to clear away the tears, "Is it really already gone? It's stopped hurting." She reached her hands up tentatively to touch the place she'd been injured just a few moments ago. "Oh wow, it really is gone. I didn't know I could do that."

"Yeah, it comes standard with the whole vampire thing. I've been shot nearly to pieces before and I hardly even have any scars to show for it except for this one." She pulled down the ribbon around her neck to show the vertical scar she'd received from the Paladin Alexander Anderson what seemed like a lifetime ago. "This is from a blessed silver blade, that's just about the only thing that'll leave any sort of lasting mark on me now."

"_Blessed_ silver?" her face fell, "So we really are unholy. I really am a monster."

"You know, I've wondered about that myself every day since I was turned. I don't believe that just being a vampire makes someone a monster. Monsters do monstrous things, and while the temptation may be greater for us being what we are; as long as we don't commit the acts that would define someone as a monster we don't have to be." At least I hope we don't, but she shouldn't have to worry about that at her age. "You don't have to be a monster if you don't want to be."

"But the blessed silver…"

"One thing I think you'll find out as you age, or as you exist anyway, is that many of the rules and conventions laid down by religion aren't quite as concrete as a lot of people think them to be or would like them to be. If you must, just think of the vampirism as another trial to overcome. You need to try to be a good person despite the temptations and bloodlust attached to our condition. I don't know if it might already be too late for me, but you never had a choice about being turned so I can't see how you would have to be eternally damned for a change that was forced on you against your will."

Seras hugged her, making sure to avoid a repeat of before, "Now let's get back to sleep, sunset won't be for a while, and I get the feeling that we'll want to be well rested to face whatever is ahead of us." The two laid down and Seras closed the lid on the Coffin.

hr 

Sir Integra Wingates Hellsing was not a happy camper; she paced her office, gnawing on a cigar while Walter read a report of what might have been another one of those creatures. The rest of the round table was hounding her for information that she just didn't have yet.

"It would seem that the group behind this is operating out of a subterranean base and the creature the other night either escaped or was released through the sewer system. This is all still conjecture, but based on the data we have about the types of 'NMC's we've seen thus far and the report the FBI gave us on the Neo-Ark incident I believe it would be safe to assume that the site of this operation will be in the vicinity of the Thames, most likely under ground near some sort of nexus in the sewer system.

Walter paused for a moment to gather his thoughts before continuing, "I believe it would be wise to start canvassing likely areas in the sewer system now, so if nothing else, we'll know where they're not based."

"Very well, assign one of the squads to go down and plant motion sensors and cameras in any areas you suspect might be in use. I think we should keep Seras and her group here for now, so they have some time to get used to each other before going out into the field." She paused for a moment, "I don't know what to do about that girl though. Do you have any suggestions?"

"I suppose she'll have to stay here until we can find some way to reverse her condition, or at least until we can make other arrangements for her. We'll be taking blood and tissue samples from her tonight so we can start getting some better research done on the workings of the FREAK chips. Hopefully this will be able to provide us with some new insights, since we've never been able to take in any of the artificial vampires alive."

"I'll leave her in Seras' care then, for now at least; or until we can find someone else to look after her." She paused and thought for a moment, "If she needs looking after. So far as I know, she could be as old as I am though I have a feeling that she isn't. See if you can find out how old she is when you're running the tests."

Walter bowed, "As you wish Sir Integra," he said as he turned to leave.

"Oh, one more thing, give her access to the library so she will have something to occupy herself with while the others are out on missions, I don't need her running around the premises unattended." Walter nodded and walked out of the room, shutting the door softly behind him.

Integra sat back down at her desk and resisted the urge to smack her head against it in frustration. This whole thing was turning into a tremendous logistical mess. Far too many people had already come into contact with the creatures for them to be able to just cover up their existence, but if it became too public Hellsing would receive a lot of unwanted attention and other secrets might get out. The Americans had been faced with the same problem after the New York City incident, but the attention on the NMC related incidents had dwindled as all of the following problems were covered up immediately. From what Integra could gather, they had been lucky with the Neo-Ark incident; there were only two living people outside the agency who had any idea what had really gone on there.

Frustrated, Integra sighed. It wasn't like her to get this stressed over what she really hoped would only be a minor incident, however, if this were to continue she wouldn't have the resources to continue covering up future incidents like the American FBI was doing. That would leave her with two choices, neither of which she cared for. She could expand the organization, losing a lot of the secrecy that they were able to maintain as a smaller group. The other option was to hand off the responsibility for handling these problems to another agency, none of which she trusted to be able to handle the situation.

"Is something bothering you master?" came a voice out of the darkness.

"Nothing that concerns you. Shouldn't you be getting ready to go out and kill things?"

Alucard took the hint and began to fade back into the shadows. "As you wish master."

"Oh, one more thing; stay away from the FBI agents and the little girl. That constitutes an order." She saw Alucard nod and vanish into the darkness out the corner of her eye. Annoying git. Couldn't Van Hellsing have chosen a less annoying vampire to enslave? Integra swiveled on her chair to look out the window. The sun was beginning to set, painting the sky off to the west scarlet and casting long blood red shadows off the trees. The moon began to rise, looking bright orange as it crested the horizon. Integra shuddered involuntarily, the eerie scene outside her window was reinforcing the gut feeling she had that something was about to go very, very wrong.


	10. Mission Time

Deadly and Blonde

Chapter 10: Mission Time

Aya awoke at about five o'clock local time, it took her a moment to get her bearings, especially since the room was underground and had no windows. Looking at her watch, she figured it was about time to get up. The sun would be setting soon, and then the real work would start. Shaking the last remnants of sleep from her head, she stood and headed for the shower.

Ten minutes later, clean and dressed in her hunter getup, Aya crossed the hall and knocked on the door. "Room service," she said loudly before pushing open the door and flipping on the lights in the room.

"You'd better be either a hot masseuse, or a cute girl in a French maid outfit with a very impressive breakfast for me," Tamsen grumbled as she slowly sat up in bed and tried to shake the sleep from her brain.

Aya smiled and assumed the best French accent she could manage, "Ah, miz Tamsen, today ve hahve zis magneefeesent Furench Toast fou you." Tamsen whipped her head around to look at the door, surprise on her face. Aya laughed, "You should see the look on your face. It's amazing that actually worked."

Tamsen tried unsuccessfully to keep herself from blushing. "You…you… This does _not_ leave this room!"

"As you wish, _mademoiselle_. Now get up, we have a briefing at eighteen hundred hours."

"Hey, where's my French Toast?" Tamsen demanded as Aya turned to leave.

"Get dressed, I'll call up to the kitchen and see if we can have some made," she replied as she walked out and closed the door behind her.

Fifteen minutes later, Tamsen knocked on Aya's door which promptly swung open for her. "It took you long enough. Now let's get upstairs and try to have something to eat before the briefing starts," said Aya as she put down the report she had been reading and led Tamsen up the stairs out of the basement. Seras was waiting for them at the top of the stairs with a somewhat cleaner looking Shielle.

"Took you two long enough to get up here; now let's go get you something to eat before the briefing," she chided as she started leading them down the corridor. "I wasn't really sure what you Americans usually do for breakfast so I asked the kitchen to make a bit of everything." Tamsen was still wondering just what "a bit of everything" would entail when Seras stopped them in front of a pair of very large doors.

"So, what's in here? King Kong?" Tamsen asked, unable to resist. She got an amused look from Seras in return before the vampiress turned around and pushed open the doors. On a long table running along the center of the room were plates and bowls of just about every type of breakfast food any of them could think of. However, despite the impressive display, they rushed through breakfast in order to get to the morning briefing on time. They arrived in front of the doors just as the briefing was scheduled to begin, Tamsen still had a piece of French Toast hanging out of her mouth which she barely managed to choke down by the time Seras had pushed the doors to the meeting room open.

The group hastily seated themselves in a semi-circle on the end of the table opposite Integra and Walter. As soon as they had seated themselves, the doors closed and locked themselves and the lights in the room dimmed as a projector turned on. The image shown on the screen seemed almost like a completely random scribble. Integra stood and began the briefing, "This is a map of the sewer system under London. We have reason to believe that whomever is behind these incidents is running their operation underground and likely using the sewer system as a distribution system for those creatures.

"Alucard has already killed four of them tonight, and we lost a survey team that we sent into the sewers to set up cameras and motion sensors. We lost contact with them approximately and hour and a half ago, and their last reported position was here." She indicated a portion of the map about a mile East of the Tower of London. "For now your mission is primarily going to be reconnaissance, but you are to destroy any of those things that you may run into. We will have the Wild Geese standing by in the event that you need to call in some backup.

"You will enter the sewer system here," she indicated a point that seemed to be directly under the parliament building. "We will escort you to the parliament building where you will take a maintenance elevator to the sub-basement. There should be an access to the sewer system from there. If there is not, we have calculated that the south wall of the sub-basement is thin enough for Seras to make a hole in with her Harkonnen if it proves necessary.

Walter handed each of them a copy of the sewer map. "You'll need to follow the route on the maps," continued Integra, "it should be the easiest and fastest way to get to your destination. Once you reach that point, you are to attempt to track down whatever attacked our scouts and eradicate it. Your weapons have already been transported and left in the sub-basement near the elevator for you.

Shielle, you'll be staying here at the manor for your own safety. Walter will take you to the infirmary for a checkup and to take some blood and tissue samples right after this meeting. After that, you'll be given access to the library and one of the computer labs to keep yourself occupied. Should you feel so inclined, you are also welcome to use the firing range under Walter's supervision if he is available." She looked around the table," Are there any questions?" Nobody raised their hand. "You are dismissed then. Prepare yourselves for deployment in half an hour."

Fifty minutes later, Aya, Seras, and Tamsen were situated around a large steel door in the sub-basement of the Parliament building wearing black, supposedly water-tight bodysuits covering every inch of them up to their necks over their normal clothing and body armor. They rounded out the ensemble with breath masks that were supposed to take care of the stench they would be encountering, and of course, lots of weapons. Seras slipped on her radio headset, followed by the mask. "Am I coming through clear?" The other two women nodded and she received a double click of acknowledgement from mission command.

"Alright ladies, let's go," she said as she attempted to turn the wheel on the hatch. The wheel wouldn't budge at first, but eventually started to move, throwing of chunks of rust and sounding like nails being dragged across a chalkboard. "Bloody hell," murmured Seras, "This probably hasn't been opened since before my grandparents were born." She kicked the door and was immersed in a red cloud as the rightmost two inches of the door dissolved into a rust cloud and the door fell out of its housing and into the foul looking river it had been hiding.

"Y'know, I don't think I really want to wade through that," remarked Tamsen.

"It's not as bad as it looks, It should only be about knee deep and it rained recently, so it's been flushed out not too long ago," replied Seras as she led the other two through the doorway and into the foul looking river. To her great relief, the mask did indeed seem to completely filter out the smell that she was sure had to be emanating from the foul looking water they were wading through.

Tamsen grimaced as she sunk up to her knees in the muck. "That's so very reassuring," she murmured in reply.

They reached their destination about half an hour later without incident. Upon arriving it was immediately apparent what had happened. There were bodies lying facedown in the muck and bullet holes in the walls and ceiling of the small corridor. The walls were splattered with blood and there appeared to be the remains of a Mossback in a state of advanced decay next to a jagged hole in the wall.

"This is Lieutenant Victoria. Command do you copy?"

"This is command, please report on situation Lieutenant Victoria."

Seras looked around and took a quick body count, "We've found the remains of the reconnaissance team, it appears they suffered 100 casualties. There are the remains of what appears to be a Mossback and a hole in the wall leading into a smaller tunnel. It also appears that one or more other NMCs passed through this area after the recon team was killed; it seems that some of the bodies have been partially eaten by something at least the size of a human." She paused as she heard something crunch under her foot and bent down to see what it was, "The surveillance equipment also appears to be a total loss," she added, kicking aside the case of the ruined infrared assembly. "What are our orders?"

The voice of Integra Hellsing came over the line, "Search and Destroy. Follow the tunnel to its point of origin and destroy the enemy facility and any conspirators you run into there. We will have reinforcements prepared for you to call in if and when you need them. You are authorized to use all force necessary to eliminate the threat. That is all."

_Well, it's been a while since I've updated I know, and I apologize for the awkwardness of this chapter. The first section of this story was originally intended primarily to be an experiment in character development and writing styles, now that the experiment's over and I've decided to pick up this piece again I needed to segue between the experiment and the rest of the story which should be a bit more exciting. It should get a bit easier to write from this point on, so I hope to have the next chapter up within a week or so. _


	11. Fateful Encounter

Chapter 11: Fateful Encounter

The tunnel was narrow, too narrow to walk any way but single file and all three of the women in the group breathed a sigh of relief when they exited into what remained of some sort of medical lab. Papers and shattered glass lay strewn about the room and what appeared to be a holding cell on one side of the room was ajar, its door having been torn off of its hinges. There were dark smears on the floor and bloody handprints on the door where they had originated. Seras pulled off her mask and began to unfasten the bodysuit, "Well, this is certainly a mess. Guess they won't mind if we add to it."

Aya and Tamsen quickly followed suit, grateful to be out of the bulky suits and able to move normally once again. The three spent a few minutes in the lab readying their weapons and checking to see if there was a map of the facility in the room somewhere; unfortunately, there was not. Seras walked over to the door and tried the controls and, after a minute of unsuccessfully attempting to get the pad to power on, attempted to kick the two inch thick, steel door off of its hinges. The door however did not yield, and instead tore itself and its housing out of the wall, slamming deafeningly into the wall on the other side of the corridor.

Aya looked up from the pile of documents she'd been examining, "So I gather you weren't planning on using surprise to our advantage here?"

Seras looked sheepish, "Um, yeah. Sorry about that." She turned to take a glance at what Aya was up to, "Find anything interesting in there?"

"No, nothing too spectacular, mostly just data on gene sequencing techniques and theories. Some financial information, but all the names are almost certainly aliases, so it probably won't be of any real help to us at all." She started to rifle through the drawers of the desk she'd gotten the papers from, then suddenly looked up and grinned, "Hey, do either of you have a .357 on you? I found some anti-NMC magnum rounds in here."

Both other women considered for a moment, "Nope, I don't think either of us do. Let's take those along in one of the packs though in case we manage to find something to shoot them lying around somewhere down here." Responded Tamsen, "I don't think there's much else left to see in here, all the medical equipment has either been removed or destroyed, and these notes won't be of any help to us."

"Alright, lets get moving then," said Seras as she led the group out the hole in the wall she'd made. She looked up and down the hall in both directions for a moment, "Both directions look pretty much identical. Anyone have any preferences?" Both of the others shook their heads slightly. "Alright, lets go left then I guess," she said as she started down the hall. The lights were flickering, making it difficult to see, and there were what looked like dead bodies strewn about. The walls were dented and deformed in places, and caked with dried blood.

"I think these people need to fire their decorator," mumbled Aya, drawing a short laugh from Tamsen and Seras. Motioning the others to stop for a moment, she leaned down to examine one of the human bodies lying strewn on the floor. "Looks like this poor bastard's been dead for quite a while. Totally cold, and it seems that he's starting to mummify, he looks fairly desiccated."

Seras quickly moved to her side and bent down to examine the body more closely. She adjusted the positioning to look at the neck and arms and swore. "It looks like whatever killed him drained his blood." She started working on changing the clip in her gun back to the blessed silver rounds she usually used. "It looks like both of our genetic nightmares are meeting up in here." She tossed each of the other women a magazine of 9mm silver rounds. "Until we know if we're dealing with vampires here, I'd recommend you load your pistols with these. They're blessed silver so they'll be effective against any undead we might run up against. Though this guy hasn't turned into a ghoul yet, so I really hope it's just some other creature that likes to drink blood."

Tamsen shuddered, "Yeah, me too. Now let's get a move on before whatever the hell it was comes back."

"She's right," said Aya. "Besides, we're not accomplishing anything but making ourselves targets just standing here. I'll take point for now," she said, shouldering her M4A1 and continuing down the hall, stepping over bodies as she went and eventually coming to a halt in front of a large, reinforced door at the end of the corridor. "Get ready for trouble, I can sense something on the other side of the door, and either it's really big, or there are a lot of them close together." She checked her weapon, and waited a moment while Seras drew her Seraphim and Tamsen swapped her pistol for her rifle and lit the pilot light on the under-slung flame thrower. "Ready ladies?" she asked before turning the wheel that served as a latch on the door.

The three women burst through the door, quickly fanning out and covering the room with their weapons. The large room they'd entered appeared at first to be completely vacant, there were what appeared to be piles of something arranged around the edges of the room, but apart from that, it seemed there was absolutely nothing else in the room except for themselves.

Calming down for a moment, Tamsen lowered her rifle and activated a switch on the wall next to where they'd come in. The room was immediately flooded with harsh white light, and after giving her eyes a moment to adjust, Aya suddenly recognized the piles. Suspended over a series of pits ringing the room were six tremendous cocoons, seemingly dormant for the time being. "Oh shit. We need to kill all of these before they're ready to hatch." She pulled off her pack and started going through it looking for something. "Do either of you have anything to pierce an inch and a half of chitin? We could probably use incendiary grenades to kill them inside of the cocoons if we can make a small hole somewhere in them."

"I think I should be able to get through with my gun, these rounds are armor-piercing and explosive. Do we have enough of the grenades?"

Tamsen nodded in response, "Aya and I each have three of them. They're thermite, so they should be able to kill whatever is in those things."

Nodding, Seras walked over to the nearest cocoon, took aim, and fired, making a half inch hole in the top of the cocoon. She fired three more times, to make sure the hole would be big enough to get one of the grenades through, then moved onto the next cocoon and started firing. Aya and Tamsen were wiring the grenades together so they could be detonated remotely and were almost ready when Seras returned, her face spattered with drops of a reddish brown liquid. "One of them sprayed me," she complained as she wiped the goo from her face. "How are things going on your end?"

"We just finished actually. Let's get these things planted and get out of here. This place gives me the creeps," said Tamsen.

It took the three of them about two minutes to plant all of the charges and run the wires from them to a controller which they brought out into the hallway with them before closing the door most of the way. Tamsen grinned, "Looks like we're all set. Anyone else want to do the honors?" She asked, gesturing at the small red button she held in her hand. When neither of the other women responded, she shrugged and pressed the button. There was a low rumble, followed by a loud hissing and popping noise from within the room. The three waited until the noise had stopped before walking back into the room.

The floor around the cocoons was coated in scorched liquid, and the tops of five of the cocoons had melted and fallen in, leaving no doubt that the previous occupant had died. One of the cocoons however still looked completely in tact. Walking over to the remaining cocoon, Tamsen put her hand against the shell. "It's cold. The grenade must've been a dud. Looks like the hole we shoved it through healed over already too." She started heading back to where the other two women were standing when she heard a soft thump come from the cocoon behind her and turned around to see what it was.

A small orange glow suddenly appeared in the area around where the hole had been, and quickly grew. Before she could realize what had just transpired, the cocoon swelled and exploded, the fragments scourging Seras and Aya, half a room away. Out of the small inferno fell something that looked and sounded like a very large, very deformed human baby. It started to try to push itself up, wailing like a thing possessed, but was suddenly silenced as Seras put three rounds right between its eyes. The monstrosity fell forward and continued to burn for a moment before starting to dissolve.

Seras continued to cover the creature until she heard a cry from behind her. "Oh my God! Tamsen!" Aya was crying as she sprinted past Seras to the wall where Tamsen was suspended, impaled by a four foot long spike of shell. Forgetting the quickly dissolving creature in front of her, Seras dropped her gun and ran over to the wall.

Tamsen was conscious, and was attempting to say something neither of the other two could understand. Aya was kneeling at her feet in a rapidly growing pool of blood, "I…I can only heal myself. I'm….I'm so sorry Tamsen. I said I would protect you, but I couldn't. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Seras quickly pulled the spike of shell from Tamsen's chest and eased her to sit back against the wall. Aya quickly moved to support her and cradled her head in her lap. Seras tossed aside the chunk of shell she was holding and leaned down, looking into Tamsen's eyes. "Tamsen, can you understand me?" Receiving a barely noticeable nod in return, she continued, "Tamsen," she hesitated for a moment, and sighed, "Are you a virgin?" Receiving another small nod she closed her eyes for a moment, then asked, "Do you want to come with me? Will you come with me into the night?"

Half way across the world, Eve suddenly sat up in bed and cried out, rousing Jodie who had been asleep next to her.

_He people, sorry I was so late updating again. I'll try to have the next chapter up sooner._


	12. Girl Talk

Deadly and Blond

Chapter 12: Girl Talk

Tamsen's funeral was a small event, held in Hellsing's small chapel. Rupert, Eve, and Jodie had flown in just a few hours ago and Jodie had decided along with Eve to remain in London for the duration of Aya's mission there. Aya reluctantly agreed after Jodie told her of Eve's recent rash of nightmares about her past.

The ceremony ended with Aya being presented with a beautifully crafted urn by the vicar, who offered a few private words of condolence before concluding the ceremony. As the group shuffled out towards the dining room for refreshments, Rupert quietly pulled Aya aside. "Are you sure this is the best way to go about this? Once I report her as Killed in Action she can't come back or it'll be all of our asses."

"I know, but as far as I can figure, this is our only real option. She won't be able to leave for probably at least a year, and we don't have the ability in our organization to be able to meet her needs. If need be, we could probably get her a new identity to come stateside with. It wouldn't be too hard considering how few people know her."

Rupert nodded, "Well, I'll abide by your judgment. Just try to see to it that this doesn't somehow come back around to bite us in the ass."

Aya was about to respond when they reached their destination and their conversation was cut off. Aya gave Rupert a little nod and walked over to where Jodie was helping Eve get what she wanted from the small buffet.

This elaborate little ceremony was necessary to establishing and maintaining that Tamsen had been killed. It also allowed Rupert to state that he'd attended her funeral without perjuring himself. Sighing, Rupert walked over to the buffet; he had a long flight ahead of him and he didn't want to go on an empty stomach.

It wasn't until almost two hours later, after the sun had set and they'd seen Rupert off that Aya led Eve downstairs. She came to a halt in front of Tamsen's door and was reaching out to knock when she heard Tamsen call from inside, "Come in, it's open." She sighed and pushed open the door. Tamsen was seated half facing the door at a table in the middle of the room along with Jodie.

Aya had barely taken a step into the room when Eve bolted past her and vaulted into Tamsen's lap. Tamsen, still breathing out of habit let out a "Woomph" as Eve landed on her. "Hey kiddo, long time no see. Have you gotten bigger since last time I saw you?"

Eve smiled up at her, "Nope, still the same age as always. I hope I grow up a bit more eventually, nobody takes you seriously when you look like you're nine."

"Well, looks like the three of us are in the same boat now kiddo. It doesn't look like I'll be aging anymore any time soon either."

"So you're really a vampire?" Tamsen smiled sheepishly and lifted her upper lip with one finger showing off her fangs. "Wow, do you really have to drink blood and sleep in a coffin and stuff? I thought your fangs would be longer."

"Yeah, I really do have to drink blood and sleep in a coffin. Not really that it has to be a coffin, but my senses are so sharp now that without being sealed up in something like a coffin, every little noise or bit of light would keep me awake. As for the fangs, they get longer when I need to feed, if they were that long all the time, I wouldn't be able to close my mouth all the way."

Eve considered this for a moment, then hugged Tamsen again. "Will I still be able to see you?"

Tamsen smiled down at her and stroked her hair, "Well I'll have to stay around here for a while, at least long enough for me to become strong enough to travel around on my own. I'll make sure to come visit you sometimes though. Until then you're welcome to come visit me if the scary lady there will allow it." She flashed a toothy grin at Aya, who gave her a mock death-glare in return.

"Only if 'Auntie Tamsen' promises to behave herself. I don't want you coming home with fangs and an allergy to garlic.

"Oh, we can bite people without them becoming vampires or ghouls; and she looks so cute…and tasty," she said before burying her face in the crook of Eve's neck and making a bunch of loud, obviously exaggerated slurping sounds. Eve squirmed and giggled until Tamsen withdrew, smacking her lips, "Mmm, mmm, good."

Laughing, Eve jumped up and mimicked Tamsen's earlier actions, to which Tamsen responded by tickling her sides. Eve quickly fell back into Tamsen's lap, laughing and squirming. Tamsen stopped a few seconds later, allowing Eve to pull herself back into a sitting position on her lap.

After giving her a moment to compose herself, Tamsen lifted Eve off her lap and helped her to a standing position before getting up herself. "Okay," she began, kneeling down a bit so her face was level with Eve's, "Eve, if you'll come with me for a little bit, there's someone I'd like you to meet." After a moment, Eve nodded and grasped Tamsen's hand. Smiling, Tamsen led Eve from the room, crossing her eyes at Aya as they passed by, causing the older woman to shake her head amusedly.

Tamsen led Eve down the hall a little ways and knocked on one of the doors. "Come in," called a somewhat muffled sounding voice from within the room. Tamsen opened the door and immediately had to clamp her hands over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

Shielle was standing in the middle of the room, wearing a white tee-shirt that could have held four of her. There was a half-drunken blood bag dangling by the tube from her mouth and a pair of cheap headphones on her ears. She was casually holding a pale pink coffin that must have weighed at least six times what she did over her head with one hand like a waitress holds a tray. She smiled as much as she could without losing her blood bag at Tamsen, then startled a bit when she noticed Eve standing next to her. She hastily put down the coffin in the far left corner of the room and pulled off her headphones.

"Eve," started Tamsen, looking down into the child's face, "this is Shielle. She's about the same age as you actually, in both ways. Shielle, meanwhile, had pulled the blood bag from her mouth and walked over to where the two were standing.

"Hello," she said extending a hand.

Eve took the offered hand, "I'm Eve, it's nice to meet you." She paused for a moment before adding, "So you're a vampire too?"

Shielle smiled a bit sadly, "Yup, I am indeed." Her expression brightened a little a moment later, "You know, I've heard a lot about you from Tamsen and Aya since I met them. I didn't really get most of the scientific stuff, but apparently we come from similar backgrounds.

"First off, anything bad they told you is a lie," said Eve with an impish little grin. "Second,"

"Second," interceded Tamsen, "You two will have plenty of time to discuss all of that later. It's been arranged for you two to room together here for the time being since the rest of us probably won't be around too much in the next few days," she told Eve, gesturing towards the bed that was situated at the far end of the room, opposite the disturbingly cheery looking coffin that Shielle had been moving when they came in. "On second thought, maybe this would be a good time for you two to discuss your backgrounds since the rest of us are due at a strategy session in a few minutes," she said after taking a look at her watch.

Eve was about to respond when she suddenly froze and her eyes widened. Tamsen was about to ask what was wrong when she noticed Seras in the process of phasing into the room via the side wall. "Hi master," called Tamsen as soon as Seras finished phasing.

Seras smiled and walked over to the group. "You know you really don't have to call me, 'master,'; 'Seras,' would do just fine instead.

"Sorry Mas...I mean Seras," she corrected herself. "There's just sort of a compulsion in the back of my mind to call you that."

"I know, I went through the same thing with Alucard before I was released." Tamsen looked at her a bit inquisitively so she went on, "Don't worry though, I won't put off releasing you to keep you under my thumb like my master did, but I do want to be sure that you're ready before I do it." Then, remembering why she'd come in, "Now why don't you introduce me to this pretty young lady?"

"Oh, right. Eve, I'd like you to meet Seras. She's the one who turned me into a vampire." After a moment, she continued, "and this is Eve, Aya's younger sister."

"It's nice to meet you Eve. I didn't know that Aya had a younger sister, but the resemblance is uncanny."

"It's nice to meet you too...but yeah, I don't really get talked about very much since I'm actually her clone, not her sister so we don't want to attract too much attention to me.

"Ummm...Eve..." Tamsen murmured in her ear.

"It's okay, sis and Jodie told me who's in the know here so I can just be myself for a while, which is partially why I'm here. Trying to act like a nine year old all the time is a pretty big pain in the ass."

Tamsen laughed at this, "Oh, I'm not so sure about that. I can think of a pretty good number of adults...mostly politicians actually, that manage to pull it off pretty well."

All four women laughed at this, even Shielle who, for the first time Seras could think of since she'd found her, had a genuine smile on her face.

Seras' radio went active then, "Miss Seras, could you and Miss Tamsen please come to the meeting room?" came Walter's voice.

"We'll be right up," responded Seras. "Well, it looks like this is where we leave you two. When you're done figuring out the room, why don't you ask Shielle to show you around a little bit if she's willing." With that she turned and led Tamsen out of the room, shutting the door behind them.

"Those two look so cute together," said Shielle to nobody in particular.

"Hmm? You mean they're?"

"Oh, you didn't know? Besides the blood bond, they're also a couple."

"Huh, well whatever makes them happy," she said, shrugging. "You're right though, they are cute together." She said as she started to look around the room.

The room was easily large enough to accommodate both girls and had its own attached bathroom. Eve's bed was in the back right corner, opposite Shielle's coffin in the left, and appeared to be an old-style canopy bed. Her bags had already been brought in and were stacked neatly in front of a dresser along the wall adjacent to her bed. There was also a desk pushed back against the wall, but apart from a similar arrangement on Shielle's side of the room, the only furniture was a small table with a bucket of ice sitting on it and two chairs.

"Well, it's large enough," she commented, "Kinda' Spartan though."

"Yeah it is rather. Sorry 'bout that."

"Why are you sorry?"

"Well, you might have been able to stay in one of the nice rooms upstairs if I weren't..."

"If you weren't a vampire, we probably wouldn't have met. Personally, I prefer it this way. Besides," she said, smiling, "this saves me from having to massively re-arrange my sleep-schedule." She sat down at the table and stretched a bit, "So I take it that was blood you were drinking when I came in?"

"That's right," said Shielle, sitting down opposite Eve at the table, "A negative, my favorite flavor."

"You can tell the difference by how it tastes?"

"Yeah, your tastes change I guess when you become a vampire, along with the rest of your digestive system. Blood tastes really good to me now, better than...well anything I ever had before I became this way. I grew up on the streets so I never really had any good food while I was alive. Even for a while after actually. I just came here a few days ago, before that I was living off of rats. Rats' blood tastes awful."

She stopped to take a sip from her blood bag then, so Eve piped up, "You lived off rats? Eeww... So you never had to kill anyone then?"

Shielle reluctantly nodded and put down the now empty blood bag. "I have," she said a bit sadly, "but he was a child molester or something and he was coming after me, so I think he probably deserved it," she added defensively.

"You don't have to defend yourself to me. According to the records we recovered from when I was found, I've killed at least four people, though I don't really recall doing it at all."

Shielle looked her over skeptically for a moment before commenting, "Are you sure the records are right? You don't look like you could hurt a fly."

"I think that's like the pot calling the kettle black..."responded Eve, noting Shielle's slight frame and delicate features, "I think I'm bigger than you are."

Shielle looked down at herself for a moment, then laughed. "You know, I think you're right; but I get super-human strength along with the whole vampire package. I don't see how you'd have managed to kill four adults."

"Well, apparently I made one's head explode, set two of them on fire, and drained the life-force out of the fourth."

Shielle just stared at her quizzically for a minute, then finally managed to say, "H-how can you be so blasé about something like that?"

"Well, before sister rescued me, I was being conditioned to kill by the people that made me. When my old memories started coming back I guess some of the conditioning did too. I know I should really be a bit sad or regretful, but between the conditioning and the other things they were doing to me I just can't seem to make myself care. I'm sure I'd feel terrible if I did something like that now, but I wasn't even me back then, I was basically just a Guinea Pig."

"Wow, that's so sad. I mean, I was used like that in a lab for a week and it was terrible for me. I don't even want to imagine what it must have been like for you." She got up suddenly and walked over to Eve, then to Eve's surprise, hugged her. "I'm sorry for questioning you like that," she whispered in Eve's ear, causing her to squeal.

"Aghh! That tickles!"

"Does it now?" Shielle whispered, then blew lightly in her ear. Eve giggled at the whisper, then completely spazzed when Shielle blew, shooting to her feet reflexively to escape the tickling, forgetting that she was being hugged still. Before she could try to maneuver herself to escape, her foot caught in the chair leg, causing her to trip and fall into Shielle, knocking both of them over.

Eve opened her eyes a moment later, after they'd landed and realized that it was pretty dumb to jump up like that while being hugged. The next thing she noticed was that her lips were pressed firmly against Shielle's. Shielle seemed to realize this at the same time and the two girls sprung away from each other, blushing to the roots of their hair.

Eve came back to her senses first and said, "Well, it's not that I don't like you, but we only met less than an hour ago. Maybe we should slow down a bit."

"Hey, it was you who jumped up and kissed me, you hussy."

Both girls stared at each other for a moment then broke down into helpless laughter, shattering the awkward tension.

As the girls calmed back down, it was Shielle's turn to speak first. "So...was that your first kiss?"

Eve nodded, "And you?"

"Same here. I never imagined it would be with a girl though."

"Well I never imagined it would be with a vampire. It tastes kinda' like blood."

"You know, that's like telling a smoker that it tasted like ash. What did I just finish drinking?"

"Oh yeah, forgot about that."

"Soooo...shall we get you unpacked?"

"Sure, thanks for helping."

"Oh, it's nothing. I may have to steal some of your clothes though. Walter went out and got me some stuff, but it's all pink frilly dresses."

"Ah, that would explain the tee-shirt then." she said, then smiled mischievously, "I bet the dresses match great with your coffin."

Shielle rolled her eyes, "Yeah...they do actually," she grimaced a bit. "Walter picked that out too. It's all pink and frilly on the inside," she said, sticking out her tongue."

"Yep, while I get this nice canopy bed," teased Eve as she flopped down on her bed. "Hey, what's this button for?" she asked noting a little control pad she'd fallen on. Suddenly the mattress began to lower and the canopy started to descend. "Wait a second! Is this a coffin!"

Shielle laughed and nodded.

"A four poster coffin...son of a" THUNK

Well, that's the end of this chapter. Thanks to everyone who's been reviewing my story, I really do appreciate it. The next chapter will be up within the next few days since I already have it written, I'm just proofreading and editing now. Get ready for a few guest appearances from some other series. I also have the first two chapters of another crossover fic between Negima and Hellsing mostly done, and I hope some of you will read it once I get it posted.


	13. Interlude

Deadly and Blond

Chapter 13: Interlude

When Tamsen and Seras arrived at the meeting room, everyone was already there and the pair quickly apologized before taking their seats. Integra stood, then walked to the back of the room and locked the doors before moving to the head of the table. "Now, before we begin the meeting, Seras, I'd like to ask you something."

"Yes Sir Integra?"

"I was under the impression from Alucard that a person could only be turned by someone of the opposite gender from themselves…"

"Ah, right. Well, as you know, vampires are creatures of passion; bloodlust, violence, sex, and so forth. Apparently among real vampires, especially more powerful ones, if one is intent enough or passionate enough, some of the usual rules can be bent. I'm not actually sure what the rules are regarding gender if there are any, so I'm not sure if that was the case here. I believe the assumption that vampires can only turn members of the opposite gender stems from most vampires' heterosexuality, coupled with the stronger sex drives we have.

"Ah, I see," said Integra who, for the first time Seras could recall since meeting her, seemed a bit off balance for a moment. The woman of steel façade returned almost instantly however, and Seras wondered if any of the others at the table had even noticed. "Seras, are you gay?"

Startled by the directness of the question, Seras almost fell out of her seat. "I…umm…how should I say…It's like…umm…" Pausing a moment to compose herself, Seras could feel the heat of the blush building on her face. "I…I think so. I'm not really completely sure though…" she trailed off, suddenly taking up a great interest in examining the grain in the wood making up the floor.

Tamsen nudged Seras lightly with her elbow, "Hey, look around; it's not that big of a deal."

Seras apprehensively looked around the table. Tamsen and Walter looked completely comfortable with her admission, while Aya just seemed a bit amused at her reaction. Jodie flashed her a little smile and a thumbs up when she looked at her, as if to say, "way to go!" Integra looked slightly uncomfortable and had a bit of color in her cheeks, but that was it. Wait a minute…why's Integra blushing? Seras thought to herself, It couldn't be that she's…nah… she cut the thought short.

"Seras," started Integra, waiting for the vampiress to finish her observing, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to keep your ahem relationship with Miss Tamsen a secret for the time being."

Seras nodded in understanding, "I'd expected that would be the case, what with the political and religious ties our organization has."

"Actually, the Queen and al of the members of the round table, well, the ones that matter anyway are worldly enough not to really care, especially since this organization doesn't technically exist so there's no worry about PR."

"Then why can't…"

"Troop morale actually. You know men, one of their primary driving forces is the desire to impress you. You are after all rather…attractive I suppose would be the word."

The room fell completely silent, it was a moment or two before the dams broke and Tamsen started laughing uncontrollably. Aya and Jodie followed suit almost immediately, and even Integra allowed herself a little laugh. Seras in the meantime proceeded to smack her head against the table a number of times. After a minute or two, Integra cleared her throat and the room quieted again. "Seras, since the only ones permitted in the dungeons besides this group are Alucard, Walter, and some of the scientists I have no problems if you two decide you'd like to share a room. Just speak to Walter and he will make the necessary arrangements."

"Oh, umm…Thank you sir!" Was the only thing Seras could think of to say.

"Well, now that that's settled," began Integra, relieving Seras of having to go on and gesturing towards a screen in the center of the table. "The raid on the facility that you three secured was a very successful intelligence strike. Though we don't know where it is, we do know for a fact that whomever was organizing this has a facility set up somewhere in the Kalahari similar to the Neo Ark facility that Miss Brea experienced a few years ago. This facility is however, according to our intelligence network and some creative forensic accounting, about eight to nine times as large as the facility in Mojave.

All eyes turned to Aya, who seemed a bit shocked, but held her silence. "We're presently working on tracking down a possible survivor from the facility you found. This man, a Mister Yoshida, seems to have foreseen what was going to befall their more recent project and fled. We believe he may also have been involved with the development of the facility in the Mojave."

Aya raised her hand, "I can confirm that. I found some of his personal effects when I was there. It seems he managed to skip town just before I got involved."

"Well, it seems then that it is almost certainly Mr. Yoshida that we're after. We have our intelligence people working on finding him now. Word has it that he's gone underground somewhere in Paris. When we find out where he is, it's likely that we'll be racing his former colleagues to get to him. As of now, the three of you are on constant stand-by and will deploy the moment we find him. Until then I want all of you to work on getting Tamsen used to her new abilities."

Integra stood and switched off the screen, "Our last order of business concerns the two children that we have here. I know that neither is as young as she appears, and they probably won't get into any trouble unsupervised, but I would still like to be able to provide them with something to do. Are there any suggestions?"

"Do you have a shooting range?" piped up Jodie almost instantly.

Aya shook her head, "You are such a gun bunny…" she murmured.

"Are you suggesting they learn to shoot?"

"Well, Eve already knows how," Aya glared at her, "What did you expect me to do with her when I'm chained to the shooting range all day? I can't really take her for a walk in the park while Pierce blows his foot off with a twelve gauge." She received a resigned shake of the head from Aya. "Anyway, I figure it might be a useful thing for them to know, considering what their guardians are getting involved with. Eve's already alright with a PPK, and I'm sure that with her abilities, Shielle should have no trouble handling a pistol as long as it fits in her hands. I'm not going to be deploying with the rest of them, so I'll be around to teach them what they need to know."

"A valid point; I'll speak to the master at arms about that. Any other more…conventional ideas?"

"Is there a TV somewhere they could use?" asked Aya.

"No actually, I'd forgotten about that. I'll have one sent down to their room."

"Is there a gym or something?"

"Yes, but it's in the barracks, so it probably would not be a good idea to let them go there."

"But isn't the shooting range…"

"Yes, it is in the barracks, but there's a smaller range in the basement of this building. It was built for Seras and Alucard to practice originally, so the walls are armor grade steel backed with a foot and a half of rebar concrete. If you like Ms. Brea, that range should be sturdy enough for you to practice with your…special abilities. There are enough stalls there for all of you, so you might want to get in some practice before your mission."

"Thanks, we'll be sure to do that."

"Are there any more questions or suggestions? No? Very well, we are adjourned. Be prepared to deploy in an hour."

It took all of about ten minutes for the group to get together everything they'd need and load it into the UH-60 sitting on the helipad designated for their use. Neither Aya nor Tamsen had really gotten around to unpacking all of their gear, so they just threw their packs in the back of the chopper. Seras just tucked some extra magazines into her coat.

Ten minutes later, they found themselves in the firing range, watching Jodie show Shielle how to properly grip her pistol. Shielle had chosen to use a Beretta 92FS, which looked far too large for her, but she seemed to be more comfortable holding than the smaller weapons which she'd complained felt too fragile.

Seras had suggested the more bulky weapon figuring that Shielle would feel more comfortable, as she and Alucard did, with something disproportionately large for her. Aya meanwhile was hefting Seras' gun and attempted to aim it without much luck. "If you think that one's heavy, you should see my _big_ gun," Said Seras, gesturing at the Harkonnen standing in one of the gun lockers.

"You can actually lift that thing?"

"Oh yes, there's actually a second one in the armory and I've dual wielded them before. Lost a bit in control, but with a pair of 30mm cannons on full auto, need for precision drops somewhat."

Aya walked around Seras once, examining, then reached out and squeezed her bicep. "Where do you get that kind of strength from?"

"Maaaagic!" said Seras, grinning and wiggling her fingers at Aya. Receiving an eye roll in response, Seras dropped the smile and took a breath before explaining. "I'm told that the artificial vampires like Shielle there get much of their abilities through mutations to their mitochondria. As for myself and Tamsen, we're not really sure since much of our power really does stem from what I could really only term, 'magic'. Our research people could probably give you a much better description than I could, I had one of them try to explain it t me once and only ended up more confused and with a headache."

Aya looked pensive, "From your mitochondria huh? That's an interesting turn of events, but I think I'm beginning to figure out some of what we saw underground the other day…" she trailed off and began to pace. "We noticed that some of the bodies appeared to have been drained of blood, but none had turned into…what was it you called them?"

"Ghouls."

"Right, ghouls. Do you think that whomever is behind this might be trying to develop a creature incorporating a combination of the other mutations I've seen before and your vampiric abilities?"

Seras nodded slowly as Aya explained her theory, "It _would_ make sense based on what we've seen. If they're using the FREAK chips to create these creatures, it would also make it much easier for them to transform and control these things."

"What's a FREAK chip?"

"It's a sort of bio-mechanical computer chip that when inserted into a person mutates their body giving them strength and abilities akin to ours. These artificial vampires aren't as powerful as we are, and they don't have the more…mystical abilities that we do, but they can still be very powerful. It all depends on the generation of the chip and the number of chips implanted."

"That _would_ make creating them much easier than it's been in the past. I'd hate to think of the sorts of things they could create by combining the two technologies. Even stronger and harder to kill than ever before, plus more power to put behind some of their energy attacks…"

"Energy attacks?"

"Like this," said Aya pointing her hand down the range and firing off a series of fireballs.

"That's pretty neat. I wonder if I could do that…" wondered Seras.

"Ah, I've been wondering, what kind of powers do you have anyway?"

"Well, I can stick to walls like Spider Man, or walk through them like Gumby. I can get blown into tiny pieces and regenerate without too much of a problem. I can fly, with or without turning into a cloud of bats, travel through shadow, create illusions, hypnotize people, talk into your mind, and summon familiars. I'm probably forgetting some things… How about you?"

"Hmm, I can heal myself, though I'm doubtful I can do it as well as you can, but I've never had occasion to be blown into little bits. I can attack using fire or electricity, and I can make a sort of protective shield around myself. I also don't really age, I'm thirty now and I look like I did when I was eighteen."

"Wow, you were a wrinkly eighteen year old," interjected Tamsen, earning herself a death glare from Aya and a laugh from everyone else in the room. "I hate to interrupt this little party of yours, but I figured you might like to know that the rest of us are going to go get something to eat. You can continue comparing your super powers up there. Besides, I'm sure the kids would love to hear about them.

"I'm not a kid!" said Shielle and Eve in unison, before looking at each other and giggling.

"Of course not. Now lets get going children, food's getting cold."

_Hey, well it's been a while I know, but some crazy stuff has been going on in real life that I've been working through. I thank everyone who reads this and I hope you'll R&R. Look forward to the next chapter hopefully sometime in the next few weeks. I've finally gotten back into the writing spirit and I hope it stays that way._

_Thanks again for reading my story._


	14. Meal Time

Deadly and Blond

Chapter 14: Meal time

_Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Jurassic Park, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Barney, the book "Blood and Chocolate", the album "Blood and Chocolate", the movie "Blood and Chocolate", Dracula, Hellsing, Parasite Eve, Weetabix, or the country of England. In fact, it's best to assume I don't own the rights to any sort of copyrighted material being as I'm a poor college student._

The meal was an interesting affair, the vampires all sat together on one side of the long table which had been laid out for the group. The settings stood in stark contrast to one another, the vampires each having only a soup bowl, a spoon, and a wine glass in front of them, the humans having full formal place settings with more utensils than Eve could even think of using during a single meal. Eve stared in confusion at her place setting until Jodie told her which utensils were for what. "I take it you've never taken her to a fancy restaurant?" Jodie asked Aya.

"No, a lot of the places fancy enough to have more than two forks, a spoon, and a knife have age restrictions. Hell, I'm not sure if some of them would let _me_ in."

Jodie and Aya had a good laugh at that which lasted until everyone was seated and one of the maids came out of the kitchen and handed everyone a menu. "Can I get anyone something to drink?" The adults all requested water, except for Seras who requested a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. Shielle initially requested water as well but changed her order when Eve asked for chocolate milk. The maid left a moment later to fetch their drinks.

"So, blood and chocolate huh?" said eve, making an amused face.

"That's right. Don't knock it 'till you've tried it. I'm not much of a fan of Elvis Costello though."

"Actually, I was thinking of the book, even though it's about werewolves." Gesturing towards Shielle's menu, she asked, "So what d'you have on there anyway, choice of blood types or can you get your blood in a mixed drink? 'I'll take a Bloody Mary, O positive,'" she inquired with an impish little grin. Shielle, for lack of a clever response stuck out her tongue which reached nearly half way across the table. "Watch it," said Eve, "you could take someone's eye out with that thing."

Shielle put on a pained look and turned to Aya, "Is this girl going to a school for smart asses and majoring in witty one-liners?"

This set Eve to laughing once again while Jodie replied with an amused glance at Aya, "I guess after being around Aya long enough she was bound to pick some of it up. Or maybe it's a hereditary thing."

Shielle turned back to Eve who was still giggling and said, "Quit that, or I'll give you a tongue lashing you'll _really_ never forget," then added, "besides if I got a Bloody Mary you know I'd get A negative."

"Okay, okay you win. Geez, your tongue is bigger than your head. Where do you keep it all?"

"Down my throat mostly I think. Since I don't need to eat solid foods and don't have to worry about breathing I don't need as big of an opening as you do. Beyond that, I'm a vampire and we get to ignore some of the laws of physics, or at least I do, I don't know about the rest of these people," she replied aiming a curious look at Seras.

"Yes, we can also. Actually, it would seem to be that only the more recent generations of artificial vampires can't. I think that it's likely that whoever is making them probably traded off some of our more mystical abilities for the ability to control the ones they turn via chips. I'd doubt you could control a true vampire to the degree that these people control their minions, almost like puppets in some cases. It seems that as an early subject, you're much closer in your abilities to us than the newer chipped vampires are."

"Well, the reason they were going to kill me was because they said I couldn't be controlled the way they wanted…" she trailed off as the maid returned with their drinks.

"Does everyone know what they'd like?" receiving nods of assent all around the table, she continued, "I'll start with the young ladies then." Eve ordered a hamburger and Shielle asked for her blood warm with a side of Weetabix which for some reason she couldn't determine seemed to amuse Eve to no end. After the maid finished taking orders and left for the kitchen Shielle asked Eve, who was still giggling to herself, just what was so amusing.

"It's just that there's a TV character who does the same thing…"

"Really?"

"Yeah, Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He likes to crumble it in his blood for the texture apparently."

"Well, the guy's got good taste." She turned to Seras, "the maid didn't seem as perturbed as she ought to be by our meal orders."

"Yes, well…Samantha is a rather interesting girl. She has a security clearance higher than half of the Knights and I think she's the only one of the maids that really knows what kind of place this is. She's asked me to turn her twice now actually."

Samantha returned with their meals a few minutes later, "Sorry it took so long, I had to raid Walter's private stash to get the Weetabix." She handed out everyone's meals and turned to Seras, "So now that you've…"

"No," interrupted Seras, "I'm not going to turn you. Why do you want it so badly anyhow? Almost everyone at this table can tell you about how problematic things like not aging can be. Not to mention you'd have to leave your whole life behind."

Samantha looked slightly miffed but continued on, "I know I've told you that I don't have much of a life to begin with." She perked back up a moment later though, "Anyway what I was actually going to ask was if you wanted me to watch the girls for you. Sir Hellsing suggested I offer to take them off of your hands so you're free to take care of your other responsibilities, plus we don't know when you'll be deployed or how long you'll be away. This would also free up Jodie to deploy along with the rest of you as it would be a better use of her skills than babysitting.

"Hey! I don't need a babysitter!" the girls declared in unison.

"Oh, I don't know about that," replied Tamsen, smirking at Eve, "I think some adult supervision could be a good thing for the two of you. Who knows what kind of trouble you could get into running around a place like this unsupervised." She turned to face Samantha, "we'd appreciate it if you'd keep an eye on them if we're deployed, I'll tell you that neither of them is as young as they appear to be though.

"I had thought that might be the case. Based on the way they talk and behave, I'd wager that they're both probably in their mid to late teen years.

"Yes, Eve is around fifteen at the moment, and so far as we can figure Shielle is either seventeen or eighteen based on her estimate of how long ago she stopped aging and how old she is physically according to the doctors."

"Alright, note to self, return Barney, pick up Jurassic Park."

"What are those?" asked Shielle.

"Well, Jurassic Park is a Spielberg flick about a bunch of people who go to see an island full of cloned dinosaurs which, of course, escape. So the visitors to the island have to try to get back off the island without being eaten, it's a pretty good movie. Barney…" Eve made a face, "You probably don't really want to know."

"What do you have against singing, dancing, purple dinosaurs?"

Shielle grimaced upon hearing the description, "She's right, I probably don't want to know."

"Alright, no Barney then," conceded Samantha, making a mental note to herself to, of course, rent some Barney.  "Is there anything the two of you _would_ be interested in doing or seeing while the adults are away?"

The two leaned in over the table and spent a moment whispering to each other before sitting back down and declaring, "We need to see Dracula!"

Samantha looked pensive for a moment, "I'm not sure that's possible since Sir Hellsing ordered him to stay away from you…" She looked up and noticed that both of the girls were eying her with puzzled expressions, "oh, did you mean the movie?" She glanced at the other adults around the table, "would that be alright for them to watch?"

"Well, Shielle is actually old enough that she'd be able to get in to see the movie anyway, Eve…" Seras glanced over at Aya.

"She's seen it before, all four or so versions of it, plus she's read the book so she'll be fine."

"I liked the one with Christopher Lee the best!" Eve interjected.

Samantha smiled at her, "That's my favorite one too, though Dead and Loving It comes in a close second."

Shielle began to look slightly crestfallen as Eve and Samantha talked about their favorite iterations of the story. Eve noticed after a moment though and smiled at her, "don't worry, you'll see for yourself soon enough." Shielle smiled back after a moment's hesitation.

"Well, I have a few things that I must see to before I am able to begin my sitting duties," she looked around for a moment to evaluate how far along everyone was with their meal. She quickly refilled everyone's glasses and cleared some of the dishes. "You can leave the dishes here when you're finished, I'll take care of them in a little while. Now, if you ladies will excuse me for about an hour and a half I'll meet up with you later and take these two little imps off your hands."

"Alright, we'll probably be back down in the firing range in the basement," said Aya. Samantha nodded her understanding and after picking up Shielle's empty bowl of Weetabix, left the room through the kitchen doors.

The group made some idle chat for a few minutes while Eve and Aya finished their meals. "Looks like you inherited her slow eating habits too," said Jodie. Eve attempted to scowl at her, but was foiled by the mouth full of burger she had. She settled a moment later for throwing a French fry at Jodie's head which the older woman easily caught and ate. "I should tease you more often if you're going to give me free food every time." This got a laugh from everyone at the table. "So back to the range?" she said as she got up. Nobody raised any objections as the rest of the group started to get up from the table.

 "Well Jodie, looks like you may get your wish for a bit of adventure on this trip," said Eve, pushing away from the table. Aya, however, put a hand on her shoulder before she could get up. Eve looked at her questioningly, but didn't say anything.

"We need to have a little chat before we join the others at the range," she turned to Jodie, "You go ahead, we'll meet you down there in a few minutes."

"As ordered," said Jodie, throwing a mock salute before leading the rest of the group from the room.

Aya waited patiently for the rest of the group to leave, Jodie closing the door behind, them before turning her chair to face Eve who had moved to sit next to her. "I don't want to put this off any more since I'm not sure when we might all end up having to run off on a mission." Eve nodded, so she went on, "Jodie said that you were having nightmares about your past, but that you wouldn't tell her what…"

"Memories," said Eve, cutting off Aya and leaving the pair to sit in silence for a moment while Aya worriedly wrinkled her brow. Eve was generally very good at hiding her emotions behind a cheery façade, but confronted with the concerned looking Aya, her resolve seemed to be crumbling. Her smile had faded now and she was diverting her eyes to keep from looking her guardian in the face.

"How much do you remember?"

Eve hesitated for a moment, fidgeting uncomfortably before looking up at Aya through her bangs, keeping her head bowed. She opened her mouth to speak, but her voice emerged as a hoarse whisper, unintelligible to her and, she knew, to Aya. She swallowed once and tried again, as tears began to well up and spill down her cheeks, "everything," was all she managed to say as she struggled to maintain her composure.

Aya stood and walked over to Eve, hugging the younger version of herself. Her resolve continuing to crumble, Eve finally broke down and began crying into Aya's shoulder. Aya was reminded of the time she'd first found Eve, when the girl had broken down in her arms after Aya had removed her helmet. Aya hadn't known what to do at the time, and found herself once again at a loss for anything to say to try to comfort Eve. She settled on alternating between gently rubbing Eve's back and just holding her, letting her release some of her pent up emotion.

The two sat there holding each other until Eve's sobs began to subside. Eve gently pulled away after a few moments and grabbed a napkin from the table to wipe her face with. She continued to sniffle as she made an attempt to compose herself. After wiping at her eyes again and blowing her nose, she sat back down in the chair to face the very concerned looking Aya. Aya reached out and brushed some of Eve's hair out of her face, then continued to gently run her fingers through Eve's long blond hair. "Eve, why didn't you tell me you were starting to remember?" she asked as gently as she could.

Eve sniffled a bit and cleared her throat before slowly replying, her voice little more than a hoarse whisper, "I…only started remembering things a few days ago. The night you said Tamsen almost got killed. It was just fragments at first, but things started coming back faster and faster. I still have some gaps here and there, but I think I can remember almost everything now. A lot's come back to me within the last two or so hours." Tears started to well up in her eyes again, but she swallowed and forced them back, it was a bit easier now that she'd cried a bit.

"How about your…" Aya was cut off as Eve anticipated the question and pointed to one of the water glasses remaining on the table, the contents of which suddenly began to boil. "Oh, Eve. I really hoped you'd be able to live your life without having to confront this again. I mean, I know that you're not aging, but I didn't want you to have to remember everything that was done to you."

"I've actually had some idea about that for a while," Eve responded, her voice still quiet, "I got into the records that were found when I was recovered. Reading about it didn't really prepare me for actually remembering though."

"Eve, are you going to be alright staying with us here, or do you want to go back and stay with Pierce?"

Eve shook her head, "No, I should stay here. Even though some of the others know about me, I think that you and Shielle are the only ones who probably really understand any of the things that I've gone through. I also…I mean, if I should…You're probably the only one who could stop me if I…if I…" Aya put her finger over Eve's mouth to quiet the girl.

"That's not going to happen. I'm not going to let that happen to you," Aya promised, hugging Eve again. Yeah, just like you weren't going to let anything happen to Tamsen, the voice in her head admonished her. "I'll be here to watch over you for as long as I can, and I want you to call me right away if you start feeling like anything is wrong." Aya pulled away just enough to look Eve in the face, "You don't always have to be so brave you know, you're allowed to cry, you've certainly got more reason to than most people do. I know it's so hard for you to trust people Eve, but you can always talk to me or Tamsen or Jodie. Just remember we're here for you, okay?"

Eve nodded, "okay."

"Do you want to go down and join the others at the range, or do you need a few more minutes?"

"I think I'll be okay now," she said as she stood and smoothed out her clothing a bit. Aya smiled at her and motioned her to stay for a moment. She grabbed a clean napkin and the glass of water Eve had heated a bit before. The water had already cooled down to a comfortably warm temperature, so she dipped the napkin in it and wiped the tear stains from Eve's face.

"Okay, I think you're good to go now. Shall we?" she asked extending her hand. Eve took it and followed as Aya started toward the door.

"Can I practice using my powers with you?" Aya considered this a bit before answering. Some practice might get Eve more ready to defend herself if the need were to arise, it would also allow her to see how much of her power Eve had really retained. It also seemed that Eve had already regained most of her memory, so it was unlikely that learning to use her powers would have any negative affect on her psyche. Actually, she reflected, it would probably be a good idea to make sure Eve had a reasonable degree of control over her abilities in the event that she had to release them.

"Okay, but we need to be very careful and start off slowly, because I don't know how powerful you are yet. Alright?"

"Alright," replied Eve as she let Aya lead her from the room.

_HAHAHAHA!! I LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!! Well, sort of anyway. I'd like to thank in advance anyone who's going to continue reading my story since I haven't updated in over a year now. I'd also like to thank in advance all of the reviewers. Samantha is probably going to be the last of the original main characters to be introduced unless something drastic happens to the outline I have of the story. Next chapter involves some fun at the shooting range followed by guns, bombs, a cameo, and the gravitational pull of Seras' boobs (FGMm/R2 ?)._


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